Marcos son admits ballot error, apologizes for cheating claim

Vice Presidential bet Bongbong Marcos with son Sandro during the INQLive in Inquirer.net office in Makati. INQUIRER PHOTO / RICHARD A. REYES

It was an honest error.

After initially denying that nothing went wrong while casting his vote, the son of vice presidential candidate Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Tuesday admitted that he shaded two circles for president in his ballot.

“Yes, I shaded 2 presidents, it was an honest error on my part. I was a first time voter and extremely nervous,” Sandro Marcos said on his Facebook page.

“I voted for (Davao City Mayor Rodrigo) Duterte as president, and saw the number 4 right after, so (I) shaded that as it was my dad’s number. I ended up shading Poe’s name instead of my dad’s, so my presidential vote didn’t count,” he said.

On Monday, while he was filling out his ballot for the 2016 elections, he stood up and asked one of the board of election inspectors for a new one but he was declined.

“Hindi po namin yun pwede i-cancel … ituloy mo na lang sir. Kung kasalanan namin  papalitan namin, pero kung kayo po hindi,” one of the BEIs told the Marcos son.

He later told reporters that everything went fine and denied he had any problems while voting.

“Once again, it was an error on my part, and I think people need to relax a little bit, we all make errors now and then. At least my VP vote was right,” he said.

In the same post, the younger Marcos apologized for accusing the administration of cheating as the number of vote counts for president and vice president did not match.

“It was done out of anger and frustration against the electoral process,” he said.

On his Twitter account on Monday night, Marcos posted: “Also the total votes for President are not the same total for the Vice President. What the hell #DayaangMatuwid.”

The tweet was later taken down but he refused to admit that it was deleted. Instead, he said it was taken down as somebody reported it to Twitter officials.

“I apologised on Twitter and am apologizing here for saying something so stupid. I know when I make mistakes and am more than happy to admit it. I was not initiating a personal attack, unlike those who responded,” he said.