spot_img
28.4 C
Philippines
Friday, March 29, 2024

Leni gets ultimatum on protest

- Advertisement -

THE Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, has ordered Vice President Leni Robredo to pay the cash deposit required by the counter protest she filed against her rival, former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

The Court also dismissed the petition filed by Robredo’s lawyers asking the justices to reconsider their March 21 resolution regarding Marcos’ election protest.

Robredo was given five days from the notice of the resolution to pay the cash deposit, said Court spokesman Theodore Te after Tuesday’s en banc session.

The Court deferred action on Marcos’ petition to dismiss the counter protest filed by Robredo until the vice president complies with the order to pay the deposit.

In the March 21 resolution, Robredo was ordered to pay P8 million for the first installment and P7.43 million for the second, for a total of P15.44 million to continue with her counter protest. Marcos, on the other hand, was ordered to pay P66.02 million.

- Advertisement -
Vice President Leni Robredo

But Robredo’s camp said Marcos should be made to pay P185 million and not P66 million since in his pleading he asked the PET to secure the protection of election results in the 92,509 clustered precincts out of the 369,138 established precincts used in last year’s national and local elections.

Marcos filed his poll protest in June 2016, contesting 39,221 clustered precincts which are composed of 132,446 established precincts. Robredo, meanwhile, filed a counter-protest, questioning 8,042 clustered precincts which are composed of 31,278 established precincts.

Marcos asked the PET to dismiss her counter-protest since she failed to settle the first installment as directed by the Supreme Court.

Marcos filed his protest a month after the National Board of Canvassers proclaimed Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and then Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo as the duly elected President and Vice President, respectively.

Robredo, who ran under the ruling Liberal Party, the political party of then President Benigno Aquino III, won the vice presidential race with 14,418,817 votes, up by only 263,473 against the votes received by Marcos.

But Marcos declared that the cheating carried out in the May 9 elections was massive and unprecedented.

Marcos said he would present the “true results” of the elections so that he can assume the vice presidency.

- Advertisement -

LATEST NEWS

Popular Articles