Binay seeks junking of Roxas protest

VICE PRESIDENT Jejomar Binay has asked the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) to throw out the 5-year-old protest filed by presidential rival Mar Roxas against his victory in the 2010 vice presidential race.

In a petition, Binay’s camp cited Roxas’ apparent “lack of interest” in pursuing his protest, which has stalled since he filed it, according to Binay, “with the eagerness of a bridegroom on his wedding night” in July 2010, after Binay was proclaimed Vice President.

Binay said Roxas’ ‘’inaction on his protest…  is clear evidence of his lack of interest in pursuing his case.”

Binay noted how similar cases had been dismissed due to the protesting candidates’  inaction “for a mere six months.”

Roxas ran with President Aquino under the Liberal Party banner in 2010. He questioned the results of the vice presidential race, citing 2.6 million annulled votes. He also asked that 26,000 compact flash cards containing election results be opened.

Reopening the ballots would cost Roxas millions of pesos.

Binay said that while Roxas’ protest had not progressed, he continued to “cast doubt upon the… elections based on his  conjectures, which are also trumpeted in media, that the [election system] was not reliable and its integrity has been compromised.”

“Thus, he has virtually succeeded in his ingenious ploy to keep a cloud of doubt hanging over the results of the 2010 elections,” Binay said.

Binay, the United Nationalist Alliance standard-bearer, is to face Roxas again in the 2016 elections, this time for the presidency. Tarra Quismundo