Recount cuts Robredo’s lead over Marcos by 21,000

May 2, 2018

A month after the Supreme Court, sitting as Presidential Electoral Tribunal, began revision of votes in the 2016 vice presidential elections, the lead of Vice President Leni Robredo over her closest rival, former Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr has been reduced by more than 21,000 votes.

A PET insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity for lack of authority to speak for the tribunal disclosed as of Wednesday, the margin of votes between Robredo and Marcos of 263,473 in the official tally has been cut down to about 242,000.

Besides the 50-percent threshold for the recount that initially cost Robredo over 5,000 votes, the source said the significant deduction in her lead was attributed to "other votes deemed not acceptable under PET rules."

The PET recount, which started last April 2, has covered one-sixth of the total precincts in the three pilot provinces so far after one month of the manual recount.

The revisors completed manual recount of votes in 16 towns of Camarines Sur, namely: Baao, Balatan, Bato, Buhi, Bula, Camaligan, Canaman, Ocampo, Gainza, Garchitorena, Lagonoy, Magarao, Pili, Presentacion, Sangay and San Fernando.

They have yet to finish the revision in 17 more towns and two cities in Camarines Sur.

Two other pilot provinces identified by Marcos in his protest against Robredo were Iloilo and Negros Oriental. All three provinces cover 5,418 clustered precincts.

In his protest, Marcos contested the results in a total of 132,446 precincts in 39,221 clustered precincts covering 27 provinces and cities.

Marcos filed the protest on June 29, 2016, claiming that the camp of Robredo cheated in the automated polls in the May 2016 national polls.

Robredo won the vice presidential race in the May 2016 polls with 14,418,817 votes or 263,473 more than Marcos' 14,155,344 votes. DMS