Former Senator Bongbong Marcos. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / RICHARD A. REYES
Former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos has asked the Supreme Court (SC) to defer the order for payment of the deposit for his election protest against Vice President Leni Robredo.
“We have asked for a re-computation of the amount, that instead of basing it on the number of established or traditional precincts, it should be based on number of clustered precincts with the advent of the automation of our system,” Atty. Vic Rodriguez, Marcos’ lawyer told reporters.
He also lamented on the “impounding” of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal’s (PET) resolution which was promulgated March 21 but was received only by the parties last Monday. The Marcos camp said they were informed of the order of payment only three days before the deadline.
The SC, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, has ordered Marcos to pay P66,223,000 for the 132,446 precincts he is protesting. It also ordered P15,639,000 for the 31,278 precincts.
READ: VP poll protest: SC orders Marcos to pay P66.2M; Robredo, P15.7M
The high court’s Information chief Atty. Theodore Te explained that the setting of the amount of deposit required in the PET case is ‘internal and comes with the procedure.’
On the other hand, Robredo’s camp has reserved comment on the case.
“We will reserve comments until next week in deference to this season of Lent and Holy Week,” Robredo’s lawyer Atty. Romulo Macalintal said in a text message.
READ: Robredo urges prayers as ‘calamity, uncertainty’ grip PH
Robredo won the vice presidential race with 14,418,817 votes or 263,473 more than Marcos who got 14,155,344 votes. IDL