Claiming bias, Marcos seeks Caguioa's inhibition from poll protest
MANILA, Philippines — Former Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Monday sought the recusal of Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa from the electoral case against Vice President Leni Robredo.
Marcos personally filed his Extremely Urgent Motion to Inhibit before the Supreme Court, which sits as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.
He accused Caguioa, who is reportedly the member-in-charge of the protest, of being a “partial and biased” judge.
In his plea, Marcos cited Caguioa’s ties with former President Benigno Aquino III, who, he said “bear[s] a grudge” against the Marcoses.
Aquino appointed Caguioa to the tribunal. “On June 29, 2016—barely four months after [Aquino] appointed [Caguioa], the election protest filed by protestant Marcos curiously landed on the latter’s lap,” his motion read.
Cases filed before the SC are "raffled" off to sitting justices.
He said that the SC justice should have practiced “delicadeza” and recused from the case “filed by his former boss’ arch nemesis.”
Marcos says Viber screenshot is proof of bias
Marcos added that Caguioa’s wife has close ties to Vice President Robredo.
He said that screenshots of a Viber group have been making rounds online, where Caguioa’s wife reportedly said: "(i)f BBM wins and if he wins because of the youth, it’ll be [the] failure of our generation. We were the main catalysts of Edsa 1 and yet we failed to impart its lessons upon the generation that followed us."
EDSA 1, also called the People Power Revolution, ended the decades-long rule of Marcos' father, ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Under martial law, thousands of Filipinos went missing, were tortured and killed. The former senator does not acknowledge the human rights violations.
Marcos said that the “evident bias, manifest partiality and blatant prejudice” shown by the justice and his wife are violations of Canons 3 and 4 of the New Code of Judicial Conduct for the Philippine Judiciary.
“In light of the clear and convincing evidence of bias, partiality and prejudice exhibited by [Caguioa and his wife] in favor of Robredo, the continued presence and participation of Caguioa as the ponente of the above-entitled case is a gross violation of the undersigned protestant’s Constitutional right to due process of law,” he added.
Robredo defeated Marcos by more than 260,000 votes in 2016, a result that the former senator is questioning because the vote was supposedly tampered with.
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