Robredo lawyer: Marcos using VP to fuel his Senate ambitions

MANILA, Philippines — The 2019 senatorial ambitions of losing vice presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos are fueling his public claims of unearthing ballots that would supposedly prove his accusations of electoral fraud against Vice President Leni Robredo, her election lawyer said on Wednesday.

Romulo Macalintal, the lead election lawyer of Robredo, said that Marcos was aware that he would lose his election protest against the vice president, so he was creating “noise” to boost his political propaganda for next year’s midterm elections.

“I think the camp of Mr. Marcos is afraid, is worried because he knows that his protest will go to nowhere,” Macalintal said in a radio interview.

Macalintal urged Marcos to stop using the name of the vice president for his ambition to top next year’s senatorial ambitions. Robredo’s lawyer said that topping the 2019 midterm polls would make Marcos, the son of the late Philippine dictator who committed massive human rights violations and corruption during his term from 1965-1986, a good prospect for a presidential bet in 2022.

Marcos has recently ruled out a campaign for the Senate next year and boldly proclaimed, without any ruling from the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, that he was the vice president of the Philippines.

If the protest of Marcos prospers, it will mark a big turnaround for his family and signal a big step in its efforts to rehabilitate its name and reclaim the presidential palace.

Marcos on Monday held a press conference where he presented ballots that would supposedly prove massive fraud operations that transpired during the 2016 national and local elections.

He alleged that images of ballots from some polling precincts in Camarines Sur and Negros Oriental proved how Robredo’s camp “manipulated the voting and trampled upon the will of the people on their choice for vice president.”

He said that votes for him were not counted and were considered undervotes and questioned why overvotes were credited for Robredo.

In a separate media briefing on Tuesday, Macalintal dismissed the latest claims of Marcos and said that they were just an attempt to cushion his imminent lost in his electoral protest.

Macalintal labeled the supposed revelation as “highly ridiculous if not outright frivolous” and called on the Supreme Court, sitting as the PET, and the Commission on Elections to investigate the source of Marcos’ “hundreds upon hundreds” of questionable election papers.

In the radio interview, Macalintal explained that the change of the oval shapes in ballot papers to square figures in their images was done by the COMELEC to avoid any complication in the counting of votes.

The veteran election lawyer also dismissed allegations that the high number of undervotes was a sign of electoral fraud, saying that such had been a feature of elections not just in the Philippines but also in other countries.

“In all election protest since 2010 no one has won in a recount, The results of the physical recount was reflected in the returns and supported the victories of the winners” according to Macalintal.