By Jaimie Rose Aberia
Former senator Bongbong Marcos challenged Vice President Leni Robredo to withdraw all the motions she filed before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) so they can finally proceed with the ballot recount.
Former Senator Bongbong Marcos points to alleged irregularities, mainly a square peg placed beside the name of Vice President Leni Robredo on an official ballot box he claims is evidence that the Comelec and Smartmatic made massive fraud and cheating during the May 2016 elections. (Photo by Ali Vicoy)
Marcos, in a press conference, said he is willing to do the same if Robredo takes the challenge.
“I reiterate my challenge, withdraw all the motion, I will withdraw all of mine. Let’s proceed with the opening, examination and recount of the ballot,” he said.
Marcos made the challenge after Robredo’s legal counsel Atty. Romulo Macalintal said Marcos has to blame himself for the postponement “for filing a weak and flawed election protest.”
Meanwhile, the camp of Marcos questioned the presence of square shapes in the ballot images instead of the oval shapes from ballots from Camarines Sur and Negros Occidental, which formed part of the pilot provinces in his election protest.
“When we voted, we had the oval shapes. How come in the ballot images, the ovals are gone and instead we have the squares. What does this mean?” Marcos said. “They keep on delaying giving us copies and it was only recently that PET allowed us to get the soft copies. Now we know why.”
Marcos also showed copies of ballot images from the same provinces that showed that votes for him were counted as undervotes. He also cited instances wherein two or more candidates under the vice presidential race were shaded but the vote was counted to Robredo instead of being considered “overvotes.”
“Marami kaming nadiskubre na kapag ako ang ibinoto, hindi binilang at ginagawang undervotes. Kaya pala mataas ang undervotes sa vice presidency, which is more than 3 million. Pero kapag iyong kalaban ko, kahit dapat hindi bilang sa kanya, sa kanya pa rin ang boto,” Marcos said.
Just last week, Marcos slammed the resolution of PET to withhold the original copies of the ballot images and other documents after requiring him to pay for the costs of decryption.
Robredo, who had 14,418,817 votes won by 263,473 against Marcos, who had 14,155,344 votes.