Marcos has no basis for seeking Leonen inhibition in VP protest case – Selda

By: Gabriel Pabico Lalu - 4 years ago

Robredo asks SC to deny Marcos' bid to examine voting records in 3 more provinces

Former Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and Vice President Leni Robredo. (File photos from the Philippine Daily Inquirer)

MANILA, Philippines — Former Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has no basis for seeking the inhibition of Supreme Court Associate Justice Marvic Leonen from the vice presidential electoral protest he filed — just because the latter voted against the burial of his father at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

That sums up the statement issued on Monday by Samahan ng Ex-Detainees sa Detensyon at Arest (Selda), a group of former political detainees during the martial law regime of then-President Ferdinand Marcos.

“Bongbong Marcos’s recent attempt to remove SC Associate Justice Marvic Leonen is an act of a sore loser and a spoiled brat — you cannot exclude an independent voice in the process because he dissented on the Supreme Court’s approval on the hero’s burial of Ferdinand Sr. and voted based on his conscience,” Selda said.

Leonen is in-charge of the poll protest filed by the younger Marcos against Vice President Leni Robredo, his opponent in the 2016 presidential elections.

Leonen became ponente of the case after a raffle had him replace Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa in 2019.

Marcos submitted a petition before the SC last Monday asking Leonen to inhibit himself due to his bias towards the Marcos family.

Selda echoed the sentiments of other observers who called out Marcos for acting like “a spoiled brat” and urged him the SC to junk the petition.

“This petition of Bongbong Marcos shows the classic intolerance of dissent of the Marcoses. It is malicious, it is baseless, it is Marcosian,” Selda said, adding that it was hoping that “the truth will prevail in this case.”

In his petition, which was supported by the Office of the Solicitor General, Marcos said: “It is clear that we’ll never get justice if Leonen is around because of his hatred towards me and my family. This is evidenced by his past decisions where he unequivocally condemned me and my family. It’s obvious he’s doing everything in his power to suppress the real story behind the 2016 Vice-Presidential elections, disenfranchising millions of Filipinos who wanted nothing but credible elections.”

After Robredo defeated Marcos in the 2016 presidential elections by a small margin of around 200,000 votes, Marcos filed a poll protest claiming that there was electoral fraud.

But in 2019, the SC sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) conducted recounts that resulted in Robredo gaining 15,000 more votes in the pilot recount areas that Marcos himself picked.

Robredo had a simple response to OSG expression of support for the Marcos petition: lols — a common expression used in social media, which was derived from “laughing out loud.”

In its statement on Monday, Selda said: “Vice President Leni Robredo won over Bongbong Marcos in the 2016 elections because the people see through the historical lies and schemes of the Marcoses to politically rehabilitate their bloody record of injustices they committed. These acts are desperate stunts of a sore loser and a spoiled brat.”