MANILA, Philippines — The election lawyer of Vice President Leni Robredo on Thursday slammed former Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his lawyers anew for allegedly “inventing” evidence in his poll protest over the results of the vice presidential vote in 2016 which he said was unfairly robbed from him.
Despite the two parties' exchange of allegations in recent days, the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, will still have the final word on the validity of these supposed evidence.
Romulo Macalintal, a veteran election lawyer representing Robredo, said that Marcos was just concocting evidence, from supposedly anomalous digital cards to the presence of small boxes in ballot papers to wet election papers.
“Mr. Marcos is only inventing his own evidence. He is just inventing his evidence,” Macalintal said in a media briefing Thursday.
Marcos is alleging that the vote-counting machines used in the 2016 elections were rigged to favor Robredo, who was the administration party’s candidate.
The former senator is the son of the late Philippine dictator and his namesake who ruled the country from 1965 to 1986.
Robredo's election lawyer disputed what Marcos called proof of a massive operation to rob him of his vice-presidential victory in 2016.
Macalintal said that Marcos and his lawyers have yet to present the 13 SD cards that would supposedly show evidence of massive irregularities in the polls.
He also disputed Marcos’ claim that the small squares in the ballot images were evidence of electoral fraud, saying that this was a new feature the election commission implemented in 2016.
'Wet ballots, missing audit logs'
Robredo’s election counsel also criticized Marcos for announcing on the first day of the manual recount of votes from his chosen three pilot provinces that there was fraud based on the discovery of some wet ballots and missing election audit logs from a Camarines Sur town.
Macalintal explained that the audit logs were not missing and are in the possession election officers for safekeeping, a fact supported by COMELEC Resolution 10057.
“The problem is they are not reading resolutions of COMELEC,” Macalintal said.
Wet ballots, on the other hand, are a common occurrence in Philippine polls, and parties can resort to ballot images to verify votes, Macalintal said.
'Rodriguez is not an election lawyer'
He also addressed the latest allegation from Marcos that ballots with pre-shaded votes for Robredo were found during the recount of the President Electoral Tribunal.
Macalintal said the ballots Marcos was talking about were rejected voting papers placed in envelopes for unused ballots as they were not separated by the COMELEC.
He also stressed that these could not be used as a basis for a recount.
Macalintal also called on Vic Rodriguez, the spokesman for Marcos, to study the election process and even resign as he is allegedly giving his client wrong legal advice.
“The problem is Mr. Vic Rodriguez is not an election lawyer. He is not the election lawyer of Mr. Marcos. The election lawyer of Mr. Marcos is Mr. George Garcia,” Macalintal said.
He added: “Why is that Mr. George Garcia is not talking about all the circumstances? Because it would be a great embarrassment for an election lawyer to say that a wet ballot is an indication of fraud.”
Marcos and his team have to show substantial recovery in votes before the PET allows a wider recount of votes from 27 provinces identified by the former senator in his protest.