Vice President Leni Robredo and former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS
The Supreme Court (SC) sitting as Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) has granted the motion of losing vice presidential candidate former Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to set the preliminary conference on his poll protest against Vice President Leni Robredo.
In a media briefer, the SC Public Information Office said the first preliminary conference would be held on June 21, Wednesday, at 2 p.m.
READ: Bongbong Marcos pays P36-M first installment of poll protest fee
“The Presidential Electoral Tribunal, in its session of 25 April 2017, acted on various incidents in ET Case No. 005 (Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos v. Maria Leonor “Leni Daang Matuwid” G. Robredo). The PET granted protestant’s motion for the setting of the preliminary conference and has SET this case for preliminary conference on 21 June 2017 at 2:00 in the afternoon, WITHOUT PREJUDICE to the Tribunal’s resolution of all remaining pending incidents,” the statement read.
But citing PET rules, the high court said the preliminary conference would also cover Robredo’s counter-protest and not be limited to Marcos’ protest.
“Considering, however, that Rule 3 of the 2010 PET Rules mandate that the rules are to be liberally construed to achieve a just, expeditious and inexpensive determination and disposition of every contest before the tribunal, the PET has deemed it proper to conduct the preliminary conference of both protests jointly and that the issues raised during the preliminary conference should include issues of the protest and the counter-protest,” the SC said.
The Court earlier ordered Marcos and Robredo to pay P66.2 million and P15.5 million, respectively, for their protests.
READ: SC orders Leni to pay P8-M protest fee | Robredo to pay P8 million fee for counter protest
The late dictator’s son and namesake, who lost to Robredo by more than 200,000 votes, earlier paid P36 million cash deposit for the retrieval of election materials covering 132,446 precincts. Robredo’s camp, meanwhile, initially questioned the order to pay the fees but later said it was willing to comply with the PET’s order to pay P8 million in cash bond for her counter-protest. IDL
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