Robredo: Marcos poll protest shades of ’86
Vice President Leni Robredo (Photo by OVP)
Vice President Leni Robredo on Wednesday rallied her supporters to push back what she called was the desire of the family of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos to return to power by overturning her May 2016 election victory against his namesake.
Former Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos narrowly lost the vice presidential race to Robredo and claimed he was cheated in the automated polls. He questioned the poll results with a protest at the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) of the Supreme Court.
Not just her fight
Speaking to students and teachers in Filipino at a forum on Women Defending Democracy in Miriam College, Robredo said protecting the vice presidency is not just her fight in the high court.
“This is a struggle over whether the people will allow the results of the election to be shamelessly trampled upon as (the Marcoses) did in 1986,” she said.
“In 2016, we had an election, we got the results, and they want to overturn the results. The solution to that is the same as our solution 30 years ago—we must show that we will not allow it,” she said.
‘Concerted’ plan
Robredo was referring to the fraud-marred February 1986 snap presidential election, which preceded the Edsa People Power Revolution that ousted the dictator, ending Marcos’ 20-year rule and installed Corazon Aquino as the country’s new leader.
Robredo told her audience the attack against her, especially on social media, was not due to her opposition to President Duterte but part of a “concerted” plan “by my opponent in the last election, who has refused to accept his defeat.”
