(Eagle News) — The Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) has decided to take action on the electoral protest case filed by former Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chairman Francis Tolentino against Senator Leila de Lima, as it ordered a recount of the votes he got in contested precincts in the 2016 senatorial elections.
The SET ordered the recount of the votes he got during the May 2016 elections, as contained in the 635 ballot boxes that were used during the May 2016 elections.
The resolution for the vote recount was approved by all the members of SET headed by Chairman Associate Justice Antonio Carpio.
Tolentino claimed that Senator Leila De Lima committed poll fraud.
The former MMDA chairman asserted that the results during the election were manipulated and that scripts were altered, including the system’s hash codes without authorization.
Tolentino ranked 13th in the 2016 senatorial elections, as he lost by some 1.3 million votes to De Lima who was proclaimed as the 12th winning senator by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC).
Based on the results of the automated elections, De Lima got 14,144,070 votes, while Tolentino only got 12,811,098 votes.
Tolentino asked the Supreme Court then to stop the proclamation of the 10th to 12th winning senatorial candidates, but the high court rejected his bid to get a temporary restraining order (TRO).
