The Supreme Court, acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, has ordered the officials in Camarines Sur to explain the alleged anomalies in the ballots found in the precincts in the province during the ongoing revision of votes in the vice presidential race in 2016.
In a nine-page notice dated June 19, the PET ordered several officials of Tinambac town, Tigaon town and Iriga City to submit their respective explanations to the various irregularities found by the revisors during the recount of the votes in their areas.
This was in connection with the resolution of the protest filed by former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. against Vice President Leni Robredo.
Marcos filed the protest on June 29, 2016 claiming Robredo’s camp cheated in the automated polls in the May 2016 national polls.
Robredo won the vice presidential race with 14,418,817 votes or 263,473 more than Marcos’ 14,155,344 votes.
For Tinambac town, the tribunal directed the municipal treasurer to explain the “plastic seals found inside the ballot box already wet, election return envelope not inside ballot box and cannot be found, envelopes for minutes of voting and torn ballots appear to have been previously opened, missing voter’s receipt box, and voter’s receipts found scattered inside ballot box.”
For Tigaon town, on the other hand, the municipal treasurer was also ordered by the PET to explain the questionable signature of the chairman of the board of election inspectors that “cannot be compared to any similar specimen in the other documents” and why several zip ties were not attached to the ballot box and already cut.
The PET also required the revision committee in San Francisco village in Iriga City to explain the questionable use of two MOV forms with substantial discrepancies and the different signatures of the BEI chairman in the election documents.
The tribunal also required an explanation from the revision committee from La Purisima village in the same city on the discovery of two MOVs signed by different BEI chairmen.
The PET gave the local officials 10 days from receipt of notice to comply with the directive.
It was the second time the PET had acted and looked into the irregularities found in the ongoing recount.
Last April, the tribunal required the local officials in Bato, Sagñay, Garchitorena and Ocampo towns to explain why the ballots from their precincts were wet or damaged.
The PET explained that, since the wet and damaged ballots were unreadable, the revisors had to refer to the decrypted ballot images in counting those votes but would do so after the revision of all the ballot boxes from the province.
The tribunal also acknowledged that some ballot boxes were re-reopened after they were sealed, citing, for instance, a ballot box found re-sealed without returning the broken security seal.
The ongoing recount, which has already moved to the ballots from Iloilo province, has revealed several irregularities like wet ballot boxes, unused or excess ballots with shaded votes for Robredo, missing audit logs and missing voters’ receipts in Camarines Sur towns.
The revisors also found out ballots with what appeared to be cigarette burns on their edges and holes in the middle portion.