Poe: No way Duterte could have manipulated results of 2016 elections

Sen. Grace Poe. (File photo by CATHY MIRANDA / INQUIRER.net)

With an overwhelming lead against his rivals, there is no way that President Rodrigo Duterte could have manipulated the results of the 2016 polls.

No less than Sen. Grace Poe, who ran against Duterte, made this assertion after Senate Majority Leader Vicente “Tito” Sotto III revealed in a privilege speech on Tuesday that the last elections were tainted with “irregularities.”

Sotto claimed he and Poe were among the candidates who had received zero votes in certain precincts during the last elections.

READ: Sotto questions zero votes of candidates in 2016 polls

Poe stood up on the floor to back Sotto’s call for a Senate probe on his expose.

“I’d also like to make a point here that I definitely lost the elections,” she said. “I know that for sure because of the overwhelming gap in the support the President had.”

“And I also believe that since the President did not belong to the ruling coalition at that time time, he really had no means to manipulate the results of the  elections,” she added.

But just because there was a clear winner in the presidential race, Poe said, it should not stop an investigation on other positions, “especially when the fight is very close.”

“I think that is a worthy concern that we need to investigate further not just in the ranking in the senatorial slate but also to be able to prevent this from  happening again in the future,” she said.

Sotto noted that Duterte himself has repeatedly said that he should have gotten more votes in the last polls. /atm