Marcos camp says Glenn Chong not part of its legal team in poll protest

Lawyers of former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. have clarified before the Supreme Court acting as Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) that former lawmaker Glenn Chong is not part of their legal team.

The lawyers of Marcos submitted a comment to the PET after the camp of Vice President Leni Robredo, through lawyer Romulo Macalintal, filed a manifestation of grave concern on some leaked data on the counting in Camarines Sur.

“Atty. Glenn Chong is not part of the legal team of protestant Marcos. He was never engaged by protestant as legal counsel for this election protest…Any claim to the contrary is flagrant lie,” the comment read.

The lawyers said one of Marcos’ counsel tapped Chong to be among their witnesses in one of their causes of action in the poll protest because of his personal knowledge and expert opinion on the electoral frauds allegedly committed by Smartmatic.

“It must be clarified, however, that Atty. Chong’s participation in the undertakings/proceedings mentioned is strictly limited to merely observing the proceedings. He was never given any authority to represent and/or speak for and on behalf of protestant Marcos,” Marcos’ counsels told PET.

The added that they have not provided Chong copies of their pleadings, resolutions, documents, decrypted ballot images, audit logs, and other data related to the poll protest.

“Atty. Chong should clarify where he obtained the said documents supposedly posted on his Facebook page as well as those which he allegedly utilized as part of his testimony before the Senate hearings,” they added.

Marcos, who lost to Robredo by only 263,473 votes, and accused her of engaging in massive electoral fraud such as pre-shading of ballots, using pre-loaded Secure Digital cards, misreading of ballots, using malfunctioning VCMs leading to an “abnormally high” unaccounted votes/undervotes for the position of VP.

The vote recount is still ongoing. /ee