Robredo lawyer: PET should probe Marcos for 'ridiculous' poll fraud evidence

MANILA, Philippines — The election lawyer of Vice President Leni Robredo on Tuesday dismissed as “highly ridiculous if not outright frivolous” the supposed evidence bared by losing vice presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos that would show massive fraud during the 2016 national and local elections.

Romulo Macalintal, the election counsel of the vice president, said that Marcos should be probed by the Commission on Elections and the Presidential Electoral Tribunal to determine his source of the “hundreds upon hundreds” of questionable ballots if it was true that these documents were radically different from the images to be generated by the secure digital cards.

“The excited and hysterical claim of former Senator Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., and his spokesperson Atty. Vic Rodriguez that they allegedly uncovered ‘solid and incontrovertible evidence of massive fraud that transpired in the 2016 elections’ based on their own copies of alleged ballot images of ballots used in the said election, is highly ridiculous if not outright frivolous,” Macalintal said in a statement.

READ:  Robredo camp: Marcos' protest is facing dismissal

He also derided the camp of Marcos, the son of the late Philippine dictator and his namesake who orchestrated massive human rights violations and corruption during his time in office from 1965 to 1986, for claiming “massive fraud” despite having only five ballot images in hand.

Marcos on Monday presented copies of election documents he supposedly received from the PET that allegedly showed “shocking and highly questionable” results in two of the three pilot provinces he had chosen for his protest.

The evidence supposedly showed how the camp of Robredo manipulated the election and “trampled upon the will of the people.”

However, if this claim were true, according to Macalintal, poll precincts where the ballots were cast would have been swamped by “hundreds upon hundreds of complaints” from candidates, their watchers, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting and other COMELEC arms, the media and local and foreign observers.

He added that “election losers” in the country would have used such questionable voting paper features in filing their protest considering their “propensity” to file all sorts of complaints.

READ: PET allows release of soft copy of ballot images to Robredo

Macalintal said that the watchers and supporters of the losing vice presidential candidate should have noticed the absence of ovals and raised their protest before the Board of the Election Inspectors if the ballots were indeed used in the elections.

“Since the time of election and up to the present not a single poll watcher from among the hundreds upon hundreds of Marcos’ watchers have ever come up to confirm Marcos’ excited and fantastic claim of poll fraud,” the veteran election lawyer said.

Macalintal said that Marcos was afraid to know the truth about the results of the election in the recount of ballots, and this could be the reason why he claimed “unfounded and unmeritorious claim of discrepancies” in the voting paper images.

“[I]t was so childish and preposterous for Marcos to claim that he was “specifically” targeted in his alleged rigging of the election calling the alleged cheating as ‘Marcos specific,’” the Robredo lawyer said, expressing confidence that Marcos did not have evidence to prove this comment.

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