It's final: Loren loses election protest case vs Noli

MANILA, Philippines – The Supreme Court, convened as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), has upheld with finality its rejection of the election protest of Sen. Loren Legarda against Vice President Noli de Castro.

In a two-page resolution, PET said Legarda raised no substantive arguments to warrant the reversal of its resolution junking her election protest against De Castro.

PET also ordered the Commission on Elections to reclaim the remaining ballot boxes and other election documents and paraphernalia involved in the electoral protest from the Supreme Court.

In its ruling, PET said Legarda “had not adequately and convincingly rebutted the presumption that as public documents, the Congress-retrieved ER (election return) copies, used for the proclamation of the protestee (De Castro) by the NBC (National Board of Canvassers), are authentic and duly executed in the regular course of official business.”

De Castro said the resolution ultimately confirmed that he did not cheat in the 2004 elections.

“We are glad this baseless protest had been finally resolved so we can move forward to a better political climate in our country,” lawyer Romulo Macalintal, De Castro’s lawyer, said.

“He won it fair and square. The resolution further clears all doubt as to the legitimacy of De Castro’s proclamation as the duly elected vice president in the 2004 polls,” Macalintal said in a text message to The STAR.

In its first resolution penned by Senior Justice Leonardo Quisumbing, the PET dismissed for lack of legal and factual basis the first aspect of Legarda’s protest involving alleged tampering in the certificates of canvass and election returns from Congress sitting as the NBC.

The Court also adopted the recommendation of Hearing Commissioner, former elections chief retired SC justice Bernardo Pardo, who stressed that “the pilot-tested revision of ballots or re-tabulation of the certificates of canvass would not affect the winning margin of the protestee in the final canvass of the returns, in addition to the ground of abandonment or withdrawal by reason of protestant’s candidacy for, election and assumption of the office Senator of the Philippines.”

SC spokesman Midas Marquez said the second aspect of the petition concerning the revision of ballots in 124,404 precincts was dismissed on June 5, 2007 due to Legarda’s failure to raise P3.9 million needed to finance a recount.

“The entire protest is now deemed dismissed and terminated,” Marquez said.

Marquez said Legarda had failed to establish that the copies of the ERs used by the NBC were spurious. PET said records showed that even Legarda’s witnesses were able to discern security features and markings in the Congress-retrieved ERs.

In its ruling, PET also said that there was no conclusive evidence to prove the alleged break-in in Congress, where the alleged switching of ERs took place. It noted that one of Legarda’s witnesses, Deputy General for Legislative Operations Artemio Adasa, had even categorically denied that a break-in and a switching of ERs had occurred in Congress.

Furthermore, PET said that even assuming that all the votes in the 497 precincts included in the pilot areas are counted in favor of Legarda, the senator would still not be able to catch up with De Castro.

“The protestant (Legarda) has been afforded ample opportunity to adduce evidence in her behalf for the First Aspect of the protest but the evidence presented is simply insufficient to convince the Tribunal to render invalid all or even half of the 881,722 votes that protestee had over her in the last elections for Vice-President,” PET said. – With Pia Lee-Brago and Sheila Crisostomo