Vice presidential recount hits snag on Day 2 as revisors quit

April 3, 2018

The recount of votes for the vice presidential race in the 2016 elections hit a snag on Tuesday after several heads of revision committees resigned for unknown reasons.

The resignation may delay the resolution of the election protest filed by former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. against the proclamation of Vice President Leni Robredo.

It was learned that four of the 40 head revisors assigned by the Supreme Court, acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), resigned from their duties only a day after the start on the recount.

But manual counting will resume Wednesday.

“We are surprised and concerned with the withdrawal of the four head revisors for no apparent reason. I hope this will not result in another round of delays especially now that we have started to uncover clear signs of fraud," Marcos said in a statement.

"They are no ordinary revisors, having undergone rigid psychological test and meticulous screening by the PET. They must have a compelling reason for backing out and I am one with the Filipino people in asking why,” he added.

Marcos said the PET had postponed the recount twice - from February to March and then from March to April - because of the difficulty in getting revisors.

The PET had initially planned to constitute 50 revision committees - each composed of a head designated by the tribunal and one member per party - but it was only able to fill in 40 committees with their head revisors.

Robredo's lawyer Bernadette Sardillo shared the concern of Marcos, saying the resignation of the revisors was "unfortunate as this will once more cause delay in the proceedings."

Meanwhile, the PET has discovered more wet ballot boxes on the second day of recount.

From four wet ballot boxes from Bato town in Camarines Sur discovered during the first day of recount last Monday, two more wet ballot boxes from Baao town were found on Tuesday, bringing to six the number of wet ballot boxes found.

Marcos raised suspicion on the sacredness of the ballot boxes. "This means the ballots were dampened only upon transfer to the PET," he said. The wet ballots, which were already illegible, were set aside, he bared.

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