THE lawyer of Vice President Leni Robredo on Thursday said a call from the camp of former senator Ferdinand Marcos that she resign over poll fraud was “nonsense,” and suggested that the person who issued the call resign instead.
Romulo Macalintal, Robredo’s lawyer, bristled at Marcos’ lawyer Vic Rodriguez call for the vice president to resign over some unused ballots found during the ongoing recount.
“I find his statement that our client should resign a nonsense statement. It does not deserve space in print or in whatever media or mass communication because what he is saying is senseless,” he said.
“It does not deserve to be dignified with any answer at all,” he added.
Macalintal said Rodriguez should resign instead as Marcos’ spokesman for “supplying the wrong information and the wrong advice” to the former senator.
He also slammed Rodriguez for “inventing evidence” to back allegations that Robredo cheated Marcos in the 2016 vice presidential elections.
As early as January 2016, Marcos claimed he had evidence of 13 secure digital (SD) cards containing proof of massive electoral frauds.
“When we challenged him to meet at the Manila Cathedral to prove his claim, he never showed up. His first invented evidence,” Macalintal said in a statement.
In January 2018, Marcos introduced his second invented “shocking” evidence, he added.
“Then on the very first day of the revision of ballots from the province of Camarines Sur, Marcos introduced his third invented evidence of election fraud—that the audit logs were missing and not inside the ballot boxes. He said the ballot boxes we opened and the audit logs were stolen. The truth of the matter is that these audit logs were not missing and that they are not really placed inside the ballot boxes as they are turned over to the election officer after the counting of the votes pursuant to Section 29 of Comelec Resolution No. 10057 dated Feb. 11, 2016,” Macalintal said.
Marcos fourth invented evidence of poll fraud was his claim of “wet ballots” in five precincts. Again, ballots being wet is not a sign of poll fraud, Robredo’s lawyer said.
It was raining at the time of the retrieval of these ballot boxes and their contents were exposed to dust and rain as certified by the retrieval committee. And wet ballots are not sign of poll frauds because there are ballot images of these ballots which, under Rule 74 of PET Revisor’s Guide would be printed and be the basis of revision, he added.