MANILA, Philippines — Caloocan City Rep. Edgar Erice yesterday branded as “fake news” the claim of defeated vice presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. that he was cheated of victory in the 2016 elections.
He said such an allegation is intended to “discredit the victory of Vice President Leni Robredo and cast doubt on the integrity of our election system.”
“The camp of Bongbong is trying to burn the whole house down in order to condition the mind of the public that he was cheated,” he said.
Erice said he felt it was his duty to defend the automated election system (AES) “because this was a product of Congress.”
Erice was vice chairman of the House of Representatives committee on suffrage and electoral reforms and was a member of the joint congressional oversight committee on the AES.
He said the AES implemented by the Commission on Elections and its automation partner Smartmatic “is the best and cleanest so far in the history of Philippine elections.”
He pointed out that there was no truth to Bongbong’s claim that votes were changed to favor Robredo.
“There were a total of 2.8 million election returns printed during the 2016 elections. Out of this huge amount of paper trail, not one instance of discrepancy between an ER and the transmitted election result was observed,” Erice stressed.
He added that Marcos’ allegation that he received zero or no votes in certain precincts “is not evidence of cheating.”
“A zero vote for a candidate in a clustered precinct only means that the candidate didn’t get any vote in that precinct,” he explained.