Leni camp belies conspiring with Comelec

MANILA, Philippines — The camp of Vice President Leni Robredo yesterday laughed at former senator Ferdinand Marcos’ latest accusation that the Commission and Elections (Comelec) is a “co-conspirator” in the alleged cheating in the May 2016 vice presidential elections.

Robredo’s spokesperson Barry Gutierrez also called  the Marcos camp “desperate” for continuously lying to the public.

Marcos’ lawyer Vic Rodriguez on Thursday slammed the Comelec for supporting the 25-percent ballot shading threshold used in determining vote validity in the ongoing recount for the 2016 vice presidential race.

In a comment filed at the Presidential Electoral Tribunal on July 18, the Comelec backed Robredo’s earlier petition for the court to apply the 25-percent threshold in the ongoing electoral recount.

Rodriguez said the Comelec’s position was evidence of “conspiracy.”

Gutierrez said news reports, dating back to February 2016, belied this allegation.

Gutierrez said the Comelec’s September 2016 resolution, to which Rodriguez was referring, merely affirmed that the vote counting machines read the votes correctly, as found by the Random Manual Audit conducted after the elections.

He said the poll body decided to adopt a 25-percent threshold for the vote counting machines to lessen disenfranchisement and give fuller effect to the intention of each voter.

Marcos lost to Robredo by more than 260,000 votes.