‘Bongbong may get Cabinet post, proceed with protest’

MANILA, Philippines - Former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. need not give up his election protest against Vice President Leni Robredo if he accepts a Cabinet post in the Duterte administration, government lawyers said yesterday.?

Solicitor General Jose Calida and Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II shared the opinion that Marcos may be appointed by the President to the Cabinet while pursuing his case before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) against Robredo.?

“Bongbong Marcos will not effectively abandon his protest against Robredo even if he is appointed to a Cabinet position after the one-year ban,” Calida told The STAR.?

He cited as basis the Supreme Court ruling in Moraleja vs Relova, which held “that acceptance of an appointment cannot be considered as inconsistent with a protestant’s determination to protect and pursue the public interest involved in the matter of who is the real choice of the electorate.”?

Aguirre agreed with this position, saying Marcos may serve in the Duterte Cabinet while waiting for the resolution of PET on his protest.?“He can accept a Cabinet post pending resolution of the PET case.

The protest cannot be mooted by the appointment as that (mootness) only applies when the protestant assumes another elective post in a succeeding election, which is tantamount to abandonment of the protest,” he explained.?

He cited as proof the election protest of Sen. Loren Legarda against former vice president Noli de Castro in the 2004 elections, which was dismissed by the PET as abandonment when Legarda was elected senator in the 2007 polls.?

Aguirre also cited as precedent the protest of former interior secretary Mar Roxas against former vice president Jejomar Binay, which proceeded despite the appointment of Roxas as secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government during the previous administration.?

This opinion rebutted that of election lawyer Romulo Macalintal, counsel of Robredo in the PET case, who argued that accepting a Cabinet post should be considered an abandonment of protest as it is tantamount to conceding defeat.?

“The ‘one-year ban’ applies only to election losers. Thus, for Marcos to wait for it is an acknowledgment of having lost in the 2016 election for vice president.

If Marcos believes he has strong evidence to prove that he was ‘cheated’ in said election, then he should just concentrate on his election protest and should never seek a position lower than the vice presidency,” Macalintal said earlier. ?Marcos, son and namesake of the dictator, is reportedly being eyed for a Cabinet post when the one-year ban on appointment of losing candidates in last year’s general elections expires next month.?

Robredo won the vice presidential race with 14,418,817 votes or 263,473 more than Marcos who got 14,155,344 votes. 

The dictator’s son filed the protest on June 29, 2016, claiming that the camp of Robredo cheated in the automated polls in May 2016.

He sought annulment of about a million votes cast in the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Maguindanao.

Robredo filed her answer in August 2016 and sought the dismissal of the protest for lack of merit and jurisdiction of PET.      

But the PET, in a ruling earlier this year, junked Robredo’s plea and proceeded with the case after finding sufficiency in form and substance in the protest.