Palace hopeful and survey frontrunner Bongbong Marcos considers his controversial loss in the 2016 vice presidential race as all part of God's greater plans rom him.
"You know, to be philosophical about it, I suppose God had other plans for me...and vice president was not part of it," Marcos, the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) standard-bearer, told a press conference Tuesday afternoon, April 26 in Cagayan de Oro.
"Even if hindi kami nanalo sa protesta (Even if we didn't win the protest), I think we have proven to most everyone that it wasn't the right result, it wasn't the proper result," he said, referring to his election protest against Vice President Leni Robredo.
Marcos's remarks stemmed from a query on how he would protect his votes in the upcoming May 9 polls, given his repeated claims that he was cheated six years ago.
"Marami na tayong natutunan since 2016 (We've learned a lot since 2016). We spent the last six years studying the problem. So we learned many things, how, what happened in 2016," he said.
During the 2016 vice presidential race, Marcos led for most of the counting process only to be overtaken by then-Camarines Sur Rep. Robredo as the election returns dwindled.
Robredo ended up beating Marcos by less than 264,000 votes--equivalent to a hair strand.
Robredo, the opposition leader, is also vying for the Palace seat in the elections next month. She is a far second to Marcos based on the latest surveys.
The UniTeam candidate and former senator said that he is concerned about "wholesale cheating" in the polls not only in Mindanao, but everywhere.
"Yung ganyang klaseng wholesale na pandaraya (That kind of wholesale cheating) is not really done on the ground. It's done in some secret place," he said.
"But anyway, as I said, we know much better now what the system is and how--ano yung mga weakness (what the weaknesses are)."
Marcos said that among the things that worry him in relation to possible poll fraud is the Smartmatic security breach. Smartmatic is the poll systems provider of the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
"Kaya yung nagkaroon ng security breach sa Smartmatic, ay nakita kaagad dahil alam na natin kung saan magbantay (When there was a security breach with Smartmatic, we already knew what to guard against)," he said.
The Manila Bulletin was the first media outlet to run a run a story about the Smartmatic systems breach.