(Eagle News) — Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., on Wednesday filed his electoral protest case before the Supreme Court which serves as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), as he insisted that he was cheated in the vice-presidential race during the vote-counting for the May 9 polls.
The strong rains on Wednesday afternoon did not hamper the filing of the case, when the Marcos camp submitted its 1,000-page petition asking the PET to set aside the oath-taking of Vice-President elect Leni Robredo this Thursday noon (June 30).
Marcos Jr., lost to Robredo by a slim margin – 263,473 votes – in the final and official tally of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) which he is also questioning, along with the Smartmatic, the provider of the vote-counting machines used in the elections.
Based on the COMELEC tally, Marcos got 14,155,344 votes, while Robredo got 14,418,817 votes.
Marcos Jr., claimed there was massive cheating in the elections and claimed that he has the complete documents, including affidavits, from witnesses on the alleged cheating.
He and his supporters are also questioning the zero votes he got in 27 provinces and cities in the country.
They also said that the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao and Basilan had pre-shaded ballots that were counted during the elections. The votes in these areas should be invalidated, Marcos said.
The Marcos camp also revealed the use of a fourth server by Smartmatic and Comelec which was allegedly used to manipulate the vote results in different provinces.
Atty. George Garcia, the lawyer of Marcos Jr., said they have several witnesses, including information technology people that had been involved in the technical process of the elections, who would testify on the alleged massive cheating in the May 9 elections.
Marcos Jr., said that after they have revealed all their evidence to the PET, he expects that those responsible for this massive cheating in the automated elections will be brought to court and be made responsible for this. (with a report from Erwin Temperante, Eagle News Service)