Leni camp: 'Loser' Bongbong 'presumptious' for claiming VP victory

MANILA, Philippines — Describing failed vice presidential candidate Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. as an "election loser," Romulo Macalintal, lead counsel of Vice President Leni Robredo, slammed the former senator as "presumptuous" for claiming that he already won the second highest office in government.

Macalintal surmised that Marcos was "merely" trying to preempt the coming results of the recount of ballots which Robredo's lawyer said would show that his electoral protest was a "ridiculous and frivolous claim of massive election cheating."

"Mr. Marcos is merely trying to preempt the coming results of the recount of ballots where his ridiculous and frivolous claim of massive election cheating will be proven false and a mere imagined victory, which is the usual reaction of an election loser who cannot accept defeat in good grace," Macalintal said in a statement.

READ: Robredo lawyer: Marcos claim of dilatory tactic 'fake news'

Macalintal stressed that based on past questions on previous automated polls, no one had ever won a recount of electronic ballots.

He said that the results of the recount would just tally with the results generated by the vote counting machines used during the election, which Marcos himself admitted to be credible.

The Presidential Electoral Tribunal dismissed Marcos' first action questioning the system in September last year because the body said that questioning the authenticity of the 2016 polls would be "an exercise in futility and would have not practical effect."

Macalintal wondered why Congress declared Robredo the vice president if it was Marcos who really won.

"It was too presumptuous for Mr. Ferdinand Marcos to claim that he already 'won the Vice Presidency' or he is just dreaming," Macalintal said.

"We hope that Mr. Marcos is not using this protest for political media mileage," he said.

Marcos on Wednesday confidently said, without court judgment, that he would not run in the 2019 national elections since he had already won the vice presidency.

The son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos is accusing Robredo of cheating her way into the vice presidency after she beat him by a slim margin of about 260,000.

Despite his confidence that he had already won the vice presidency, Marcos still complained about the bias of Justice Alfred Benjamin Caguioa in handling his electoral protest.

He said that the Supreme Court justice had been issuing decisions that favored "the other side" although he did not elaborate on his statement.

The camp of Marcos identified Camarines Sur, Robredo's home province, Iloilo and Negros Oriental as the three pilot provinces for the recount which would start next month.

READ: Marcos argues against Robredo's bid for ballot soft copies