THE camp of former Sen. Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Thursday welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), setting a definite date for the preliminary conference on his electoral protest filed against Vice President Maria Leonor G. Robredo.
The PET set the preliminary conference on June 21 at 2 p.m.
“We welcome the PET resolution setting the case for the much awaited and prayed for preliminary conference. With this date in sight, finally,” lawyer Vic Rodriguez, Marcos’s spokesman, said in a statement.
“Senator Marcos will have his day in court and prove that the Vice Presidency was indeed stolen from him and from the people. It is time for the truth to come out,” he added.
The tribunal has decided to set just one preliminary conference for the protest and counter-protest, citing Rule 3 of the 2010 PET Rules that allows adjustment in rules “to achieve a just, expeditious and inexpensive determination and disposition of every contest before the tribunal”.
Also in the same resolution, the tribunal said it would conduct the preliminary conference on Robredo’s counter-protest at the same time.
The resolution also directed both parties to file their preliminary conference briefs with the tribunal, and serve the same on the adverse party at least five days before the date of the preliminary conference.
In addition, the tribunal also required both parties to file their respective preliminary conference briefs, which contain the following:
The possibility of obtaining stipulations or admissions of facts and documents to avoid unnecessary proof; the simplification of the issues; the limitation of the number of witnesses; and the most expeditious manner for the retrieval of ballot boxes containing the ballots, elections returns, certificates of canvass and other election documents involved in the election protest.
On Tuesday the PET denied the petition filed by Robredo seeking reconsideration of its March 21 resolution and directed her to pay the cash deposit as stated in the said resolution regarding the election protest filed by Marcos.
“The PET denied protestee Robredo’s motion for reconsideration of the resolution dated March 21, 2017 and directed protestee Robredo to pay the cash deposit as stated in the resolution dated March 21, 2017, within a nonextendible period of five days from notice of resolution,” the tribunal said.
In the same order, the PET deferred action on Marcos’s omnibus motion to dismiss the counterprotest until Robredo complies with the directive to pay the deposit.
On March 21 the PET ordered Marcos to pay P66,223,000 for the 132,446 precincts for his election protest against Robredo to proceed.
The tribunal earlier required Robredo to pay about half of the cash deposit of P8 million on April 14. But after rejecting her appeal on the order, she was given five days from receipt of the latest order to pay the amount. PNA
The camp of Marcos said they would monitor closely where Robredo would get the P15.44 million to comply with the PET order.
“She only has P8 million in her SALN [statement of assets, liabilities and net worth], and she cannot accept donations since she is an elected official. So we will watch closely where she’ll get the P15 million,” Marcos lawyer Vic Rodriguez said in an interview.