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Lawyers for Vice President Leni Robredo asked the Supreme Court (CS) to investigate the “possible collusion” between former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. and Attorney General José Calida in the Marcos-Robredo electoral protest.
In an urgent motion, Robredo’s legal team questioned Cálida’s involvement in support of Marcos in what they said was supposed to be a private trial between a losing candidate and an elected public official.
Marcos and Calida had sought, in separate appeals filed hours apart, the inhibition of Deputy Judge Marvic Leonen from the proceedings of the protest that has been pending before the CS, as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), during the last four years.
“The timing and synchronicity of the actions of OSG and Protestant Marcos are too perfect to be accidental,” said the vice president’s attorneys.
The PET dismissed both motions on Tuesday, marking the second time Marcos’s allegations of bias failed to convince the court to re-raffle the case. His motion to inhibit then-judge Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa was denied in 2018.
This time, the court also ordered Cálida and journalist Jomar Canlas, whose reports Marcos and the attorney general had cited in their arguments, to explain why they should not be found in contempt of court for their actions.
In their 31-page motion, Robredo’s attorneys said the Cálida Attorney General’s Office (OSG) made arguments “eerily similar” to Marcos’s in seeking inhibition from Leonen.
They asked the PET to carry out an “immediate investigation” into “possible collusion between Cálida, his 19 deputy attorneys general and Canlas to” tarnish the reputation of the member in charge.
The two motions accused Leonen of being biased against the Marcos family, both citing his dissenting opinion in the Ferdinand Marcos burial case, as well as the alleged delay in the case under Leonen’s supervision as a member in charge.
Marcos has claimed that he and Calida have not communicated regarding the electoral protest.
Robredo’s lawyers also noted that Cálida campaigned for Marcos in the 2016 elections, saying that this connection makes the attorney general’s participation in the protest suspicious.
They said that only Marcos, the Protestant, could bring bias charges against Leonen. “The State, through OSG, has no obligation to calm the insecurities, impatience or hurt feelings of the Protestant Marcos,” they said.
“The personal feelings of the Protestant Marcos are not the concern of the Republic or the people,” they added.
GSO’s role is to serve as an attorney for the government in legal proceedings. But in filing motions related to the electoral protest, Cálida has invoked her role as “Tribuna del Pueblo.”
He has used this rationale for both his motion to inhibit Leonen and his call, despite the position of his client, the Elections Commission, for the PET to implement the 50 percent threshold on the vote count at the beginning of protest.
“If the Attorney General’s Office is going to be the People’s Tribune, it cannot be someone’s gladiator,” Robredo’s lawyers said.
“In fact, how does it help the welfare of the people to side with a man? And why would he take the position of the defeated candidate whose interest is to question and effectively disenfranchise the people of the Philippines?” they added.
Robredo’s side claims that Marcos’ protest, which alleges fraud in the 2016 elections, should have been dismissed last year when a tally of ballots from Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental showed that the vice president’s advantage over his rival increased by about 15,000 votes. .
Instead, the PET, citing due process, ordered the parties, OSG and Comelec to comment on the issues of Marcos’ call for the annulment of the electoral results in Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Maguindanao for alleged terrorism and fraud. .
Robredo’s term ends in 2022.—AOL, GMA News
