"This is now a blot in the Duterte administration's record."
"This is now a blot in the Duterte administration's record."
Assessing how things are going for the petition filed by Bongbong Marcos against the self-styled Vice President Leni Robredo, we could well say it has gone haywire. The issue is now badly affecting the Duterte administration. No matter how one looks at the massive electoral fraud that transpired, one could not avoid pointing to it as indivisible to the issue of corruption which this government has sworn to eradicate. What makes the case disheartening is that the unresolved issue is badly affecting the credibility of the President. The outcome of the protest is determinative whether the corrupt yellow hypocrites could just cut short the administration that promised to bring about change in our society.
One need not know how this doggone classmate of his appointing power messed up the Rules to resolve the electoral case. This is indicative that Justice Benjamin Caguioa wants to legalize his opprobrious decision by the expedient way of dismissing the petition outright. As we see it, the sitting President could not prevent the possible derailment of the constitutional process by the court’s possible affirmation of one who is a product of massive political swindle, and using that as her springboard to wrest power and to bring to naught the dream and aspiration of the Filipino people.
Robredo’s questionable assumption as vice president is now a blot in the Duterte administration that talked much of imposing swift justice to drug offenders and weeding out graft and corruption in government.
The indecisiveness of the President not to cut off the Comelec from its umbilical subservience to the US-controlled and operated election counting machine has drawn speculation, with some wildly suspecting the administration is using Smartmatic for its own political advantage. The greedy and overtly ambitious politicians in the Duterte administration are now hooting the candidacy of Sara Duterte for the presidency. They all blindly view she could inherit the presidency because of the popularity of the father anchoring on our paternalistic political system like the election of B.S. Aquino who took on the mantra as son of the liberator of our democracy.
When the Supreme Court decided to set aside the draft decision written by that abominable classmate of Aquino, the 11 justices practically conveyed that what he wrote was outrageous, for he virtually ignored the evidence already submitted by the parties. He violated the rules of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) for which he was given one year to decide the protest. More than that, he usurped the period for the Supreme Court to decide within two years as a collegial body by submitting his shabby draft after three years, which should have warranted his impeachment.
Due to slavish deference, litigants often accept the decision without much ado for fear that questioning that would only invite harsh retribution. People tend to accept the shabby decision by audacious judges for fear that questioning their psychological quirks would only invite retaliation. In fact, Caguioa came out with a draft decision, without him considering that the protesting party was required to pay an exorbitant protest free of P36 million which, by legal implication, obligates his court to do its assignment of making a recount of the votes. Moreover, to dismiss amounts to prejudging the case and is frivolous, ever entertaining the thought that the Supreme Court has the plenary power to dismiss a case outright.
The PET should have considered serious the allegation of massive electoral fraud committed by the self-styled vice president or should we say, by one created by Smartmatic and by the disrespectful front organization of the reactionary Catholic Church that calls itself as Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV). Common sense will tell that Caguioa should have refrained from dismissing the petition for the fact that he did not only consume the time allotted to him by law but extended the period to consume the privilege allotted to the Supreme Court to review his lackluster draft. He even tricked the parties by consuming their time arguing on the issue of shading of ballots to consider the vote valid only to arbitrarily amendment to change the rules that virtually made him a kingpin.
The lowering in the threshold in the shading of votes to 25 percent was a clear violation of the Rules. First, the arbiter cannot just change the rule on shading especially where there is already an issue raised before it. There is a saying that one cannot change the rules midstream, for one way or the other, one will be affected. But in this case of Robredo, her counsel were determined to revise that rule knowing and expecting that a recount would raise the number of votes cast in her favor. The alteration effectively benefited the self-styled vice president, such that when the recount was made, the votes cast in her favor incalculably weakened the purpose of the protest.
The classmate did not even bother to ask why so many votes cast in favor of the Robredo were shaded less than 25 percent? One could not help speculate the possibility of haste to fill in as many votes as if the cheaters wished to comply their quota. As one would put it, “kinaladkad nila ang mga boto to favor Robredo.”
The lawyer of Robredo failed to understand that her demand to reduce the shading requirement to 25 percent amounts to confirming their fraudulent cheating which the Classmate would now use to dismiss the case as moot and academic. The dumb bitch logic of Macalintal is indicative that he does not know that either filling up the ballots in haste could generate a disproportional number of votes in favor of her valued client that even simpletons would doubt.
On that basis, her lawyer now seeks to dismiss the petition of Bongbong because the recount accordingly indicates there was no substantial recovery of votes. But again, the issue is not about the number of votes cast but in the validity of the shading, and this is where his logic failed him.
It would be illogical for Bongbong to denounce the under shading rule to validate the votes, knowing it was principally his reason why he lodged a protest just as it would be illogical for Robredo to question the invalidity of the under shaded votes cast in her favor. This dumb-witted lawyer failed to put logic that the numbers only count when all the votes have been legally and validated as agreed by the rules before the election and not after the election.
Finally, the classmate was clever to submit his draft decision far beyond the period required of him. Expectedly, because his decision to dismiss without examining the evidence submitted was overwhelmingly rejected. In effect, it was back to square one for the Supreme Court to act in the reception of evidence and in examining them. The classmate is now hilariously laughing how he entrapped the High Court to do what was obligated to him as chairman of PET which means further delay of the case until the petition becomes stale with him blaming his colleagues for the lapse.
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