‘I am not running for Senate in 2019’ – Bongbong Marcos

Former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.  (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / RICHARD A. REYES)

Published: 10:11 a.m., Jan. 10, 2018 | Updated: 11:38 p.m., Jan. 10, 2018

Former Sen. Bongbong Marcos on Wednesday said he would not run in the 2019 senatorial elections so he could “finish” his electoral protest against Vice President Leni Robredo.

“Why would I run for senator, I already won as vice president?” he said at the weekly Kapihan sa Manila Bay.

“I will see this petition through because I believe that this is an honest fight… I won’t stop this,” he said. “What really was the true result? Who really won? Those are important [to know].”

Robredo’s election lawyer, Romulo Macalintal, quickly responded to Marcos’ statements, saying the former senator was “too presumptuous” or was “just dreaming.”

“If he won as vice president, why is it that it was Robredo who was proclaimed by Congress as winner?” Macalintal said in a statement.

Duterte endorsement

The namesake of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos said he would not stop pursuing his protest even if President Duterte would endorse him as a candidate and neither would he run even if the ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) included him in its senatorial slate.

Marcos accused Robredo of cheating after he lost to her by over 230,000 votes, an allegation the Vice President had strongly and repeatedly denied.

He made it to the top 12 possible senatorial candidates in the 2019 elections, according to a Social Weather Stations survey on Dec. 8-17, 2017.

‘Unfair and unjust’ PET

Marcos also accused the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) of being unfair and wanted its chair, Supreme Court Associate Justice Benjamin Caguioa, replaced to end what he alleged was the “unfair and unjust” handling of his electoral protest.

“That’s one option,” he said of seeking Caguioa’s ouster. “I don’t know if that’s what we would be doing. But we should definitely do something so it would be fair and to put an end to this.”

Macalintal said Marcos was “merely trying to preempt the coming results of the recount of ballots where his ridiculous and frivolous claim of massive election cheating will be proven false.”  /kga /pdi