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(Bongbong Marcos and Leni Robredo)
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For an unexplained reason, before daybreak, Ma. Leonora Robredo managed to overtake Marcos by over one million votes. Nobody could believe the cheating machine operated by Smartmatic could overtake the votes by almost two million without the votes of Marcos proportionately increasing.


It was wholesale cheating, for practically the counting machine of Smartmatic downloaded a total of 2 million votes with practically no vote casts in favor of one expected by many to win. The overall ledger in the increase of votes cast only referred to the two specific candidates out of the more than a hundred thousand candidates listed by Comelec in that election of 2016.


Marlon Garcia is the local head of Smartmatic believed by many as a CIA operative to oversee the cheating operation has fled the country to avoid being indicted for electoral sabotage. He together with the former head of the Comelec identified as Andres Bautista, is believed by many to have collaborated to reduce the 2016 election to sham. Both are now in the US.


Marcos was able to present his allegations of the rigged result why he lost despite the expectations of many who voted for and supported him.


To recall, the coup-installed president, Corazon Aquino, redrafted her own constitution allegedly to pave the way for a clean and honest election under the tutelage of the Americans. In the land of luminaries where demagogues pretend to say their piece about the Constitution, however, they omitted the Supreme Court’s inherent jurisdiction to decide petitions involving the recount of presidential and vice presidential candidates.


Instead, the new constitution gave reference to Section 5, Article VI creating the Electoral Tribunal but by-passed the Commission on Elections and accorded supervisory power to the SC by placing the Chief Justices as presiding head of the presidential electoral tribunal (PET) enacted by R.A. No. 1793. The question is, can this silly provision enacted by ordinary legislation be cited as equivalent to the provision of the Constitution itself?


Specifically R.A. No. 1793 states to quote: "An Act Constituting an Independent Presidential Electoral Tribunal to Try, Hear and Decide Protest Contesting the Election of the President-Elect and the Vice-President-Elect of the Philippine x x x."


One cannot even say this law is rooted in the powers of the Legislature to entertain electoral contests and recounts because a particular law called Presidential Electoral Tribunal has been created to perform specific assignments, and the Comelec was also deprived of its regular function. This explains why for whatever irregularity that may be committed in the election of President and vice president, a case cannot be brought for questioning before any court, not even in Congress and the Comelec. In the vernacular, "pina ikot lang tayo."


It is even foolish for one to raise his petition before the Supreme Court because it reneged on its function, and cannot now resolve the issue of constitutionality for the fact that its own "boss-chief" is there to supervise.


By that as it may, my concern is not why Robredo won and Marcos lost, but why up to now the Supreme Court or its amorphous adjunct has not decided the petition despite the clear mandate for the PET to decide the petition within the given period of time.


Section 3 of R.A. No. 1793 states that "The Presidential Electoral Tribunal shall decide the contest within twenty months after it is filed, and within said period shall declare who among the parties has been elected x x and in case of a tie between the candidates x x x for vice-president x x x." 


It appears that the PET and the High Court are collaborating to delay the release of the petition as if to tell the petitioner to wait until kingdom come.




Sources: 

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"Why the outrageous delay?", Danger in the President’s political decisions, <a href="https://manilastandard.net/opinion/columns/backbencher-by-rod-kapunan/327698/danger-in-the-president-s-political-decisions.html" class="news_link" target="_blank" title="Soource">Backbencher by Rod Kapunan</a>, Rod Kapunan, July 04, 2020, Manila Standard
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It is not why Robredo won and Marcos lost, but why up to now the PET has not decided yet