— Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (right) presses hands with admirers during his speaking engagement at the Unibersidad de Manila on Wednesday. Marcos is touring universities to talk about the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), which his committee handles in the Senate. (MNS photo)
MANILA, May 30 (Mabuhay) – The camp of defeated vice presidential candidate Sen. Bongbong Marcos on Monday urged incoming-president Rodrigo Duterte to create a body to investigate the allegedly high number of undervotes in the heated vice presidential race.
“We are urging president-elect Duterte to probably create a body to take a look at this because we are not talking just about the elections now, we are talking about the impunities and the irregularities and the vulnerabilities that happened as a result of this automated election system implemented this 2016,” Marcos’ campaign adviser, Rep. Jonathan dela Cruz, said in a television interview.
Dela Cruz added they will file an electoral complaint to clear out the issues and concerns that have transpired during the vice presidential contest.
“We have thirty days to do that. The winner has to be proclaimed first before we can file any case,” he said.
Based on the official count of Congress sitting as the National Board of Canvassers, Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo won the race with 14,418,817 votes compared to Marcos who had 14,155,344 or with by slim margin of 263,473 votes.
During the canvassing, the Marcos camp had repeatedly pointed out the undervotes for each certificate of canvass for the vice presidential race. Dela Cruz said a total og 3.9 undervotes were recorded by their camp.
Earlier, Robredo’s legal counsel Romulo Macalintal said these undervotes were neither irregular nor an indication of electoral fraud. He added that these undervotes were not only for vice-president.
“Hindi ‘yan (undervoting) bawal, iregularidad o tanda ng pagkakamali. ‘Yan ay bahagi ng halalan, di lamang sa ating bansa kundi maging sa ibang bansa, pagka sila ay nagkakaroon ng halalan, may mga botante na nag-aabstain o hindi bumoboto for a particular position,” Macalintal said.
But Dela Cruz refuted this, stressing that most of the undervotes were in the vice presidential race. He also said undervotes amounting to millions is unusual in a tight race.
“Undervote is actually an unaccounted vote. If it’s in a million, it is unusual. Especially in a contest such as this where most of the candidates are low, and especially since President [Benigno] Aquino himself was at the forefront of the campaign against senator marcos. It is quite in the public mind,” Dela Cruz said.
“Most of this unaccounted votes are for vice president race. We have an account for each and every province that is the reason why we have a listing. We have the listing available for public viewing. We are going to concentrate on a number of these provinces especially those which we believe something have happened which should’ve happened in an electoral contest,” he added. (MNS)