FORMER senator Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos on Tuesday expressed concern over the resignation of four head revisors from the manual recount of ballots in the 2016 vice-presidential race being conducted by the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET).
“We are surprised and concerned with the withdrawal of the four head revisors for no apparent reason,” Marcos said in a statement.
According to a PET source, the four head revisors did not report for work on Tuesday.
The PET source said the resignations would affect the recount. The tribunal had intended to hire people for 50 revision committees but was able to designate head revisors for only 40 committees.
Marcos said he was hoping the withdrawal of the revisors would not result in another round of delays especially after his camp claimed to have found “clear signs of fraud.”
He noted that those tasked with the recount of ballots were not ordinary revisors as they went through rigid psychological tests and meticulous screening by the Supreme Court sitting as the PET.
Marcos, who lost the vice presidency to former Camarines Sur representative Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo by only 263,473 votes, is assailing the results in 39,221 clustered precincts.
He paid for a recount in 36,465 precincts and wants the votes in the remaining 2,756 nullified.
‘Marcos won’t win through undervotes’
Also on Tuesday, the camp of Robredo said Marcos won’t win his poll protest by claiming the so-called “undervotes.”
The Marcos camp had chosen Camarines Sur, Negros Oriental and Iloilo for the pilot recount of votes because of the high incidence of undervotes in these provinces, which resulted from voters abstaining from voting for a vice presidential candidate or failure to shade at least 25 percent of the oval next to the name of the preferred candidate.
Robredo beat Marcos in the three provinces by a total of 915,947 votes.
Marcos lawyer Vic Rodriguez said in an interview with CNN Philippines there were at least 290,000 undervotes in Camarines Sur, Negros Oriental and Iloilo, supposedly enough to overcome Robredo’s winning margin.
Robredo lawyer Romulo Macalintal said during the same interview: “[N]o protestant has ever won an election based on undervotes…The presence of undervotes is not because the vote-counting machines failed to count the votes [accurately]. It is due to the error committed by the voter,” Macalintal added.
Macalintal also said Robredo could also claim undervotes.
‘Imee gatecrashed’
On Monday, the Marcos camp found that ballots in four ballot boxes were wet and one had a puncture, while 38 out of 40 opened ballot boxes from Bato, Camarines Sur had missing audit logs – indications the election documents had been tampered with and compromised.
Macalintal dismissed the claims anew, citing Section 29.f of the Commission on Elections’ Resolution 10057, which states that audit logs, which indicate the times voting began and ended, among others, should be returned to election officers.
“As election lawyers, we all know that audit logs are not left inside the ballot box. What is inside the ballot box are the ballots,” he added.
Bernadette Sardillo, also a Robredo counsel, countered Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos’ claim that the Robredo camp was trying to downplay the poll fraud indications as shown by the missing audit logs and wet ballots.
“If it is following the rules of PET that is being placed in issue, maybe Ms. Marcos should also explain why she blatantly violated the rules when she gatecrashed the revision area,” Sardillo added.
The Liberal Party on Tuesday expressed confidence that the recount would be able to lay to rest questions about the May 2016 vice-presidential contest.
LLANESCA T. PANTI AND JEFFERSON ANTIPORDA