BBM poll protest still undecided

Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin on Thursday refused to confirm or deny reports that the Supreme Court, acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, had already made a decision favoring former Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (BBM) in his election protest against Vice President Leni Robredo.

“I cannot confirm or deny that because [the one claiming we have voted] must know more than I do. That’s the bad part about it. There is no definite voting yet or anything that happened in that particular case,” Bersamin told reporters on the sidelines of the National Summit on Dangerous Drugs Law in Manila.

3 pilot provinces

The Chief Justice said he was still reading the report of the assigned decision writer, Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, on the results of the revision of votes in the three pilot provinces chosen by Marcos for a recount.

He also hinted that Caguioa’s report may not yet be final because the other justices would still have to scrutinize it.

“A report is a report so other justices—there are 14 others—will probably look at that report and study very carefully what were written there, if there was such a report.

“Now if there are contrary opinions on that report, that’s another matter so deliberation will require us to sit down and maybe comment on some aspects of the report,” he said.

The Chief Justice declined to confirm if there will be deliberations on the case in the court’s en banc session next week.

Ruling before retirement?

Asked if the ruling would come out before his retirement on Oct. 18, Bersamin replied: “I do not know. My retirement does not demand from the other justices that we should act… I do not like to say that my retirement has no value but I would also like to say that we must respect the opinion of the 14 others. The one who is retiring is only one of 15 so that’s unimportant.”

Robredo was proclaimed winner of the 2016 vice presidential race with 14,418,817 votes or 263,473 more than Marcos’ 14,155,344 votes.