VICE President Leni Robredo has asked the Presidential Electoral Tribunal to dump the motion of former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. seeking to dismiss her counter-protest for his nonpayment of the cash deposit earlier required by the PET.
She says Marcos was misplaced in citing rulings the Supreme Court’s rulings in the cases of Perla Garcia and Bienvenido William Lloren in his motion to dismiss her counter-protest due to his failure to pay the required cash deposit.
She says that, in Garcia’s case, the issue was the payment to the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal of the filing fee to be paid simultaneously with the filing of the petition.
She says Lloren’s case does not apply as the issue raised there was the payment of appeal fee.
“For the foregoing reasons, the Motion to Dismiss the Counter-Protest should be stricken off the records of this case,” Robredo says in her appeal.
She says Marcos’ motion should be deemed moot and academic had already complied with the PET’s order dated April 25, paying the first installment of the cash deposit for her counter-protest amounting to P8 million on May 2, 2017.
Sources in the PET shared the argument of Robredo that Marcos’ motion to dismiss, filed on April 19, had become “moot and academic” with the payment by Robredo on May 2 of P8 million of the P15.43 million for her counter-protest covering 31,278 precincts.
The second payment of P7.43 million is to be turned over to the PET, composed of all the 15 justices of the high court, on or before July 14 as stated in the March 21 resolution of the tribunal.
Marcos had paid P36.023 million of the P66.223 million required for his protest involving 132,446 precincts covering 39,221 clustered precincts in 25 provinces and five cities in the country.
The PET had set for June 21 the preliminary conference jointly on the protest and counter-protest filed by Marcos and Robredo, respectively.
A preliminary conference, pleaded earlier by Marcos, would start the formal proceedings in the election cases.
It will determine, among other things, stipulations or admissions of facts and documents to avoid unnecessary proof, the simplification of the issues, the limitation of the number of witnesses, the most expeditious manner for the retrieval of the ballot boxes containing the ballots, election returns, certificates of canvass, and other election documents involved in the case.
In seeking the dismissal of Robredo counter-protest for non-payment of the protest fee, Marcos cited election protest cases that were dismissed for the nonpayment of protest fees.
The cases cited were those of Perla Garcia vs. House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal and Rep. Harry Angping, and Bienvenido William Lloren vs. Commission on Elections and Rogelio Pua Jr.
“Guided by the foregoing, the dismissal of the counter-protest in this case is therefore warranted given the failure on the part of the protestee/counter-protestant Robredo to pay the required cash deposit within the prescribed time limit of this Honorable Tribunal,” Marcos said in his motion.
But Robredo says it is not mandatory for the PET to dismiss a poll protest for the non-payment of the cash deposit.
“Marcos conveniently omitted to say that the dismissal of a protest or counter protest, as the case may be, due to the nonpayment of cash deposit is discretionary and not mandatory,” she said.
