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The Attorney General’s Office (OSG) has told the Supreme Court that, as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), it has the power to validate or nullify the election results of three Mindanao provinces that former Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. alleges were contaminated. fraud.
Marcos filed a protest in court after losing the 2016 vice presidential election to María Leonor Robredo.
The PET requested the opinion of the Attorney General before deciding on Marcos’ protest.
In its 38-page comment, G.S.O. said that, under Article VII, Section 4 of the Constitution, the court “shall be the sole judge of all contests related to the election, results, and qualifications of the President or Vice President and may promulgate rules for the purpose. “
“The Presidential Electoral Tribunal has the power to declare the Annulment of Elections or the Election Failure without infringing the authority of the Electoral Commission (Comelec),” states the comment, signed by Attorney General José Cálida.
He said that the PET was within his authority to declare the annulment of the elections or the failure of the elections.
What it cannot do is hold special elections, which violates Comelec’s authority, GSO said.
The PET’s “mandate under the Constitution is clear: to be the ‘sole judge of all contests related to the election, the results and the qualifications of the president or vice president,'” he added.
The failure of the elections must be declared before any winner of the vote is proclaimed, the annulment of the elections must be declared after an electoral contest and during electoral protests, he said.
In the case of Marcos, “there is no doubt that although the votes cast in the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur and Basilan are declared null and void, there is no lack of choice to speak. On the contrary, the final winner, or the one with the majority (or plurality) of the valid votes cast, is easily determinable, ”said GSO.
The case has been pending before the PET for more than four years, having been presented by Marcos on June 29, 2016.
Supreme Court Justice Marvic Mario Victor Leonen, the rapporteur in the case, wanted a comment from OSG before the court moved forward.
After Leonen took over the case on October 29, 2019, he asked Marcos and Robredo to file separate memoranda last January for the case to continue.
Since then, the case has barely advanced.
In his memo, Marcos, son of the late President Ferdinand Marcos, argued that he can prove that the signatures of voters from 2,756 constituencies grouped in the three Mindanao provinces were fraudulent.
In his memorandum, Robredo asked the PET to dismiss the protest.
With a vote of 11 to 2 on October 15, 2019, the PET rejected the recommendation of Robredo and Judge Alfredo Benjamín Caguioa to dismiss Marcos’s protest.
Leonen, however, deferred the court’s decision by obtaining approval from 11 judges to first obtain the opinion of GSO to ensure that the PET will not step on Comelec’s feet.
Marcos lost to Robredo by only 263,473 votes.
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