Marcos lists 3 provinces for pilot recount

MANILA, Philippines — Losing vice presidential candidate Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. listed three pilot provinces for recount or revision that would allegedly show the merits of his election protest questioning the victory of Vice President Leni Robredo in last year’s national election.

In an interview, Victor Rodriguez, a spokesperson of Marcos, said that Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental were chosen because they would allegedly show that there were major discrepancies between the cast ballots and those transmitted by the Vote Counting Machines (VCMs) and reported by the Certificates of Canvass.

Robredo, through her lawyer Romulo Macalintal, claimed that the protest of Marcos was based on general allegations and manufactured evidence designed to sway the results in his favor.

Macalintal said that Marcos, the namesake of the late dictator whose rule was marred by massive human rights abuses and corruption, claimed that the whole automated election system in 2016 was defective, rendering the whole process null and void.

“Yet, in doing so, Marcos limits his questions to one position—the Vice-Presidency. It is clear, however, that his claim effectively attacks not only protestee Robredo’s canvassed votes but also his own,” he pointed out.

Rodriguez, the Marcos spokesperson, said that it was improbable for Robredo to get more than 80 percent of the votes cast in Camarines Sur considering that all of the other vice-presidential candidates were either from the Bicol region or had ties to it.

Robredo obtained 643,865 while Marcos got 40,195 votes. Sen. Francis Escudero, who is from Sorsogon, got 36,509 while Alan Peter Cayetano, the foreign affairs secretary whose wife is from Albay, received 14,601 votes.

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, who traces his roots to Albay, obtained 11,334 votes while Sen. Gregorio Honosan garnered only 7,005 votes.

Other issues raised

In the case of Iloilo, it was “implausible” for the vice president to obtain 573,729 votes against Marcos’ 94,411 votes considering that the running mate of the former senator, the late Sen. Miriam Santiago, was from the province, according to Rodriguez.

Another support cited by Marcos was the alleged warm reception given by the Hiligaynons during their visits there.

For his protest in Negros Oriental, Marcos cited the fact that it was impossible for him to lose in the province since he was supported by the biggest political families in the province, said Rodriguez, oblivious to the fact that President Rodrigo Duterte won the presidency despite not being supported by the biggest political families in the country.

Rodriguez also pointed to the high number of undervotes in these provinces as another sign of irregularity. Undervotes refer to uncounted ballots either because voters did not vote for a certain position, or there were unclear markings on the ballot paper.

“According to election experts from here and around the world, the acceptable rate of occurrence of undervotes should be just 1 percent. But when the undervotes are more than 5 percent like in these 3 provinces, that should cause alarm and suspicion because it is not normal,” he said.

Marcos on Friday filed his preliminary conference brief with the Supreme Court sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET).

In his filing, Marcos, a former senator, enumerated his admissions, proposals for stipulation, issues to be resolved, list of witnesses and documents in support of his protest.

A total of 362 witnesses were listed in the brief as individuals who may be called upon to testify and submit supporting evidence.

Some of these individuals are Elections Commissioner Christian Lim, Directors Jose Tolentino, Esther Roxas, J. Thaddeus Fernan, Teopisto Elnas and Ferdinand De Leon as well as Smartmatic executives Marlon Ramos and Elie Moreno.