Leni asks SC permission to accompany ballot retrieval team

Vice President Leni Robredo INQUIRER.net file photo

Vice President Leni Robredo has asked the Supreme Court, acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), to allow her representatives to monitor the retrieval and join the transportation of ballot boxes from areas being contested by losing candidate Bongbong Marcos.

In a seven-page omnibus motion for clarification dated Jan. 3, Robredo’s legal team, headed by Romulo Macalintal, asked the PET to allow both parties and their representatives to be present during the inventory of the ballot boxes at the storage areas.

Robredo’s lawyers asked that both sides be also allowed to escort or accompany the ballot boxes, election documents and paraphernalia from the storage to the designated staging area, and then to the gymnasium of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals in Ermita, Manila.

Last Dec. 5, the PET released a schedule for the retrieval of the ballot boxes, voters’ lists, voters’ registration records and other election documents from clustered precincts in 37 cities and towns in Camarines Sur where Marcos claimed to have been cheated of votes.

In their motion, Robredo’s lawyers noted that under the schedule, the municipal or city treasurers and election officers who have custody of the documents would just deliver them to the PET retrieval team.

However, they said, both parties should be allowed to see where the boxes and documents were being stored and to monitor the inventory so that they could make their observations and comments, and then verify the completeness and correctness of the items being collected and retrieved.

Both sides should also be able to observe the transportation of ballot boxes and documents from the towns to the designated staging areas and later to Manila, Robredo’s lawyers said.

“This motion is not intended for delay but dictated solely by the foregoing exigencies,” the motion stated.