Bongbong seeks 3 commissioners for poll protest

MANILA, Philippines - Former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. again pushed yesterday for the speedy resolution of his election protest against Vice President Leni Robredo before the Supreme Court.

In a seven-page urgent motion, Marcos asked the SC sitting as Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) to designate at least three hearing commissioners to expedite the proceedings in the preliminary conference in the case set on June 21.

Marcos explained the designation of three commissioners “will better facilitate an orderly, simplified and expeditious disposition of this electoral contest considering that there are three causes of action raised in this election protest.”

Through lawyer George Garcia, the late dictator’s son argued that the assignment of different hearing officers would also be necessary “so as not to muddle the proceedings” since their camp intend to present specific set of witnesses and documentary evidence per cause of action.

The three causes of actions raised in the protest were the allegedly flawed automated election system, the failure of elections in several provinces in Mindanao and the unauthorized introduction by Smartmatic’s Marlon Garcia of a new hash code – a new script or program – into the transparency server on the day of the elections in May last year.

Robredo won the vice presidential race with 14,418,817 votes or 263,473 more than Marcos’ 14,155,344 votes.