Former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday urged the Supreme Court, acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, to sustain its earlier ruling mandating a 50-percent threshold for the ongoing revision of the votes pertinent to his election protest against Vice President Leni Robredo.
Marcos claims he was cheated in the vice presidential race in 2016 that Robredo won, and has asked for a recount of the votes.
In an 11-page comment, Marcos opposed Robredo’s renewed bid to lower the threshold to 25 percent, saying the PET should affirm its ruling on April 10 that considered only the votes that were at least 50-percent shaded as valid votes in the manual recount.
He made his statement even as Robredo’s camp on Monday denied the Commission on Elections had set a 50-percent threshold for the national and local elections in 2016.
“I cannot believe what I just heard. Mr. Marcos is insisting that the Presidential Electoral Tribunal should only validate the ballots with 50 percent threshold shading. This will mean disenfranchisement of millions of voters in the 2016 polls, including those who voted for him,” said Robredo’s legal counsel Romulo Macalintal.
“It is not true that the Comelec set a 50-percent threshold for the 2016 national and local elections. What the Comelec set was a 25-percent threshold shading as stated in the Sept. 6, 2016 Comelec en banc resolution adopting the recommendation of Commissioner Luie Guia.”
Marcos, who personally filed the pleading, asked the PET to dump the motion for reconsideration filed by Robredo last month in which she reiterated her plea to the PET to lower the limit and instead apply the 25-percent threshold supposedly set by the Comelec during the canvassing of the votes in the last automated polls.
He said granting Robredo’s plea would be tantamount to giving her special treatment since the PET had applied the 50-percent threshold under its rules promulgated in 2010 for the automated elections in the country.
“Protestee Robredo should not be allowed to change the rules of the game this late in the day,” Marcos said.
“What makes her case so special that she can demand a lower threshold of 25 percent? To repeat, the 50-percent shading threshold in determining valid ballots is being applied not only in the PET but also in the SET [Senate Electoral Tribunal].” Marcos said Robredo was already prohibited from seeking an amendment of the rules for the case that had moved since 2016.
“If protestee Robredo was confident that she has a legal basis to apply a 25-percent sharing threshold, she has two years from the time of the filing of this election protest to move for the amendment of Rule 43 (I) of the 2010 PET Rules,” Marcos said.
“Consequently, she is barred from asserting that the 25-percent threshold be applied to her instead of the mandated 50 percent shading threshold imposed by the 2010 PET Rules.”
Marcos also disputed Robredo’s assertion that the Comelec applied the 25-percent threshold.