Move on, Robredo camp tells Bongbong

Vice President Leni Robredo’s camp advised  losing rival Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Thursday to “move on” after prosecutors dismissed a criminal complaint his camp filed against poll officials.

A spokesperson for Robredo, lawyer Beng Sardillo, noted that the Manila city prosecutor dismissed the complaint against the officials of Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) Corp. due to insufficient evidence.

She noted that the camp of Marcos, with campaign adviser and former Abakada Party-List Rep. Jonathan A. dela Cruz acting as complainant, failed to prove probable cause to charge the officials for allegedly altering computer data and tampering with the election results.

“The dismissal means that they failed to establish their case. Mr. Marcos, however, does not want to move on,” Sardillo said.

“His camp is now looking to the Department of Justice to rule in his favor. While the right to litigate is accorded to any person, fair play demands that we guard against false or baseless charges.”

Sardillo added that “no amount of appeal” could could change the prosecutor’s decision.

“There are times when we just need to accept the facts and the truth no matter how painful it might be,” she said.

Dela Cruz’s complaint accused the Smartmatic technical support staff and Comelec technology officers of cybercrime offenses and vote rigging. He told the justice department that the Manila City Prosecutor’s Office should not have cleared the respondents of bad faith when they admitted they altered computer codes without the Comelec’s permission.

Marcos’ camp had blamed Robredo’s victory on a script amendment that corrected the display of the letter “ñ” in candidates’ names, which rendered as question marks. Marcos has filed an electoral protest against Robredo, who beat him by a narrow margin of just over 263,000 votes in the May elections.