The Supreme Court (SC) yesterday ordered the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to secure and protect the sanctity of the ballots and all election paraphernalia in relation to an election protest filed by former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr against Vice-President Maria Elena “Leni” Robredo.
The order came after the camp of Marcos pleaded with the SC, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), to issue a precautionary order to preserve the integrity and safety of all the ballots, ballot boxes, voters’ receipts, election returns (ERs), computerised voters’ list, audit logs, transmission results, log files and other documents and paraphernalia used in the May 2016 elections.
During en banc deliberations of the PET, it ruled to issue summons and granted the prayer of Marcos in connection with Rule 36 of the 2010 Rules of the PET.
The Comelec is specifically mandated to do its duty in preserving the election documents from the May 2016 vice presidential race.
“…Preserve and safeguard the integrity of the ballot boxes and their contents, including the ballots, voter’s receipts and election returns; the lists of voters, particularly the Election Day Computer Voter’s List, and voters registration records and the book of voters; [and] the audit logs, transmission logs and all logs filed, and all other documents or paraphernalia used in the May 2016 elections for the position of Vice President of the Republic of the Philippines,” the PET said.
Also, it ordered preservation of the “automated election equipment and records such as Vote Counting Machines (VCMs), Consolidation and Canvass System [CCS] units, Secure Digital cards (main and back up) and the other data storage devices in all of the ninety two thousand five hundred nine (92,509) clustered precincts used in the May 2016 elections, effective immediately and continuing until further orders from the tribunal.”
Marcos, represented by election lawyer George Erwin Garcia, filed his election protest last June 29, stating that Robredo’s proclamation as vice-president is “null and void because the [certificates of canvass] generated by the CCS are not authentic, and may not be used as basis to determine the number of votes that the candidates for vice-president received.”
Marcos, who lost to Robredo by 263,473 votes, accused her of “massive electoral fraud, anomalies and irregularities” such as pre-shading of ballots, pre-loaded Secure Digital cards, misreading of ballots, malfunctioning VCMs and an “abnormally high” unaccounted votes/undervotes for the position of vice-president, among others.
The former senator, son of late former president Ferdinand Marcos, lodged his 1,000-page petition against Robredo, who was accused of conspiracy in the biggest election fraud in the history of the Philippines.
Marcos pointed out that accuracy of the poll results and reported irregularities should be probed and should be done through immediate conduct of Judicial Revision/Recount of the ballots and the examination, system audit and verification of the voter’s receipts, election returns and related-election documents.
He said he filed the election protest to unveil the allegedly massive electoral fraud and it is his obligation to million of voters who voted for him.
To show his proof of Robredo and the Liberal Party’s electoral fraud, Marcos attached to his petition about 20,000 pages of affidavits, certificates of canvass and other supporting documents that he said will give crystal -clear manifestation of manipulation done by the LP, the administration of President Benigno Aquino 3rd, Smartmatic Corporation and the Comelec.