Robredo says electoral fraud allegations affect process from 'president to councilor'

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Leni Robredo said on Friday that allegations of electoral fraud during the 2016 presidential elections affected the whole poll process, from the president down to the councilor of the smallest municipality in the country.

Two senators in the past two months came out and claimed to be in possession of evidence and witnesses that would prove that there were irregularities in the 2016 national and local elections.

Last month, Sen. Francis Escudero, who lost the vice presidential election to Robredo, said that he had documents that would show that the contents of back-up security digital cards used in the 2016 polls did not tally with those on the original cards.

Then on Tuesday, Sen. Vicente Sotto III said that several candidates for national positions benefitted from manipulation of votes supposedly committed by Smartmatic, the technology provider of the Commission on Elections.

Robredo said that questions about integrity of the 2016 elections were tantamount to questioning the victories of all the winners in that poll.

“What is affected here is the whole electoral process, from president up to the smallest councilor in the smallest municipality,” she said in Filipino in a forum in the University of the Philippines campus in Iloilo City.

She said that the grounds cited by Sotto and Ferdinand Marcos Jr., another losing vice presidential candidate, were different.

Marcos, the son of the late Philippine strongman accused of committing massive human rights violations and corruption, filed an electoral protest against Robredo who won the vice presidency by more than 260,000 votes.

If Marcos succeeds, this will mark a big step in his family’s quest to reclaim the presidential palace, 32 years after its patriarch was ousted by a military-backed popular revolt.

Robredo highlighted the need for the accusations by senators of electoral fraud to be probed into and ensure that any investigating body would be independent and insulated from politics.

Although Escudero said last month that he would present his witness to the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Automated Election System, this has not happened yet.

The Comelec has already warned the public to be cautious about allegations of electoral fraud and has communicated with the office of Sotto to get hold of the evidence and witness he claimed to have.

Robredo refused to discuss Marcos’ pending electoral case against her following the court’s order for both parties to stop talking about the merits of the complaint in public.

She, however, called on the people of Iloilo City to secure the ballot papers that would be transmitted from the town to the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, in Manila.

“We all know that no cheating happened here,” she told her audience.

Iloilo, Camarines Sur and Negros Oriental are the pilot provinces for the recount, expected to begin later this month, being sought by Marcos for his protest.