Lawyer Romulo Macalintal said in a statement that in the first place, Marcos’ protest was “weak and flawed,” such that “the Presidential Electoral Tribunal has to resolve many preliminary matters before the case could move on.”
He noted that it was the former senator “who first asked the PET to first resolve the issue of defective election system and his vaunted claim that he would be presenting voluminous documents and evidence to prove his case.”
A year after the first preliminary hearing, though, Macalintal said Marcos agreed to dismiss the issue on regularity of the automated election system.
He said he also waived the presentation of “voluminous” evidence.
“No election protest involving the automated polls since 2010 to the present has been successfully pursued and Marcos is fully aware of this situation, thus his claim of bias of the PET in favor of Robredo as he could not indeed accept defeat in good grace,” Macalintal added.
The PET is expected to start the recount of ballots from Camarines Sur in the second week of February, the lawyer said.
Marcos has accused Robredo’s camp of resorting to “dilatory” tactics.
Robredo won the 2016 vice presidential race against Marcos by only 263,473 votes.
Marcos said in his election protest that there was massive vote-buying, misreading of ballots, and an “abnormally high” unaccounted votes/undervotes for the position of vice-president, among others, during those polls.