Robredo camp: Marcos' protest facing dismissal

MANILA, Philippines — The latest "revelation of poll fraud evidence" by former Sen. Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. is merely an attempt to cushion their imminent loss at the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, camp of Vice President Leni Robredo said on Tuesday.

"Mr. Marcos' protest is clearly facing its effectual dismissal. He knows his protest is very weak, that's why he is using evidence outside PET," Romulo Macalintal, counsel of Robredo, said on Tuesday.

Macalintal faced reporters in reply to Marcos' media forum on Monday where the late dictator's son bared "evidence" of election documents supposedly showed "shocking and highly questionable" poll results in several towns in Camarines Sur and Negros Oriental.

Marcos said that the images of ballots from the said towns showed that votes for him in the provinces were either not counted or considered undervotes since marking was unclear. He also assailed the presence of square shapes in the ballot images.

But Macalintal said that Marcos is merely using evidence outside his poll protest to divert attention from his "weak protest."

"Marcos is afraid because we will soon have a recount, it will prove that there was no fraud that happened, there was no mistake done by our vote counting machines," Macalintal said.

Marcos' 'evidence' must be fabricated

Macalintal also said that election documents Marcos showed on Monday may be fabricated or altered.

The election lawyer challenged Marcos to show the election documents to him. He added: "Why don't you go to the PET and ask to be allowed to compare with copies from the election tribunal?"

The PET only allowed the release of soft copies of the ballot images from the pilot provinces identified in the poll protest. Macalintal said that this means that it was the camp of Marcos who printed the said documents.

"How would you know if there is discrepancy? Did you ever ask the PET for comparison?" Macalintal added.

He also twitted Marcos' claim to revisit alleged undervotes as merely a "dream." Macalintal hit Marcos for "fishing for evidence."

"How many votes will you get from Naga City? Ask Marcos now. If he can predict, forecast [votes] from the City of Naga. He can't tell," Macalintal said.

"If you say that you are waiting for recount, you are fishing for evidence," he added.

Leni does not want recount? Lies spread by Marcos camp

Macalintal also slammed the narrative being floated by the Marcos camp that it was Robredo who is running away from a ballot recount.

"Lies. We really, really want to have the recount," Macalintal said, adding that their camp has not filed any motion to stop the election recount.

"We are the ones asking for a faster recount. We don't have a problem with it," he added.

On January 11, Marcos posted on twitter #StarttheDamnRecount, with a quote saying: "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

The same call was carried out by numerous accounts in social media.

Macalintal said that the recount is set to start on the third week of February.

Marcos, the son of the ousted Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, accused of committing massive human rights violations and corruption during his more than two decades in office and died in exile in Hawaii, has accused Robredo of cheating her way to the second highest office in the land.

He lost to former Camarines Sur Rep. and human rights lawyer Robredo by a slim margin of about 260,000 votes in the 2016 national elections.

READ: Bongbong's accusation of PET as unfair: What's behind it?