­­Leni camp: End of Marcos protest nears

MANILA, Philippines — Following a major victory on the voter shading threshold issue, the camp of Vice President Leni Robredo believes that the protest filed by former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will soon end.

In an interview with Radyo5 Thursday, Robredo’s legal counsel Emil Marañon III expressed confidence that the ongoing recount in the selected pilot provinces will show the votes tallying with the election returns from every precinct.

Citing the rules of the Supreme Court sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), he said the recount in the other contested provinces will not push through if the votes in the pilot provinces tallied.

“We are very confident that the moment the Supreme Court (sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal) used the correct basis in counting the votes, it will tally not just in the election returns in every precinct,” he said in Filipino.

“In other words, this will be the end of the protest of Bongbong Marcos. For us, we are very confident that that will happen in this case,” he added.

In a 21-page resolution dated Sept. 18, the PET partially granted Robredo’s motion for reconsideration seeking the application of the 25 percent shading threshold as used by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in 2016.

The PET said the 50 percent shading threshold used in 2010 could not be applied after it was informed by the poll body that it used a range of 20 to 25 percent shading threshold for the 2016 elections.

The tribunal also denied Marcos’ opposition to the use of decrypted ballot images, noting that he has failed to submit proof that would back his claim that the images were not faithful reproduction of the paper ballots.

In the same radio program, Marcos’ lawyer Vic Rodriguez reiterated their interpretation of the PET ruling, saying it did not side with the 25 percent shading threshold.

“They (PET) were never informed of the alleged existence of the resolution containing the reduction of the threshold from 50 to 25 percent,” he said.

“And since they were not informed, and they were never given a copy thereof, what the Supreme Court says is that they have no basis to amend the rules,” he added.

Rodriguez failed to mention that tribunal has recognized the new threshold used in the 2016 elections, and that it specifically underscored the purpose of the revision process which is to recount the votes by mimicking how the machines counted the votes.

To address issues on voter threshold, the PET considered the proposal of Comelec to use the decrypted ballot images to determine if a vote was counted by the machine.

It also noted the possibility of referring to the election returns generated by the machines to verify and confirm how the votes were counted.

Rodriguez said their legal team would meet to discuss the possibility of filing an appeal with regard to the use of decrypted ballot images and the electronic election returns.