FORMER senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. is set to file a motion with the Supreme Court (SC) seeking to stop the Commission on Elections (Comelec) from returning to Smartmatic more than 1,000 unused vote counting machines (VCM) pending resolution of the electoral protest he filed against Vice President Leni Robredo.
Jose Amor Amorado, Marcos' legal counsel, said losing Vice Presidential candidate disagrees to the poll body's plan to release some 1,356 vote counting machines that were not use during the election period.
"Senator Marcos is vehemently opposing the plan of Comelec to return the 1,356 VCMs to Smartmatic for the simple reason that there is no approval from the PET in the light of the PPO it earlier issued," Amorado said.
On July 12, the SC granted Marcos' request for the Court to issue a Precautionary Protection Order (PPO) to preserve the integrity and safety of all the ballots and paraphernalia used during the May 2016 polls.
The PPO particularly covers all the contents of the ballot boxes, the list of voters or the Election day computerized Voter's List (EDVCL) and the Voters Registration Records (VRR).
Amorado said they will ask the SC to stop the poll body from turning over the VCMs to the Smartmatic scheduled on October 26, as these "contingency machines" are covered by the PPO.
In a letter dated September 29, Comelec Commissioner Christian Lim informed
Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno that the Comelec will return the machines to Smartmatic as according to them, the VCM's were not covered by the Court's PPO for these were not deployed nor used last elections.
But Amorado said it is for the SC and not for the Comelec to determine if these machines were used or not.
"In so far as our technical people are concerned there is no way that Comelec will be able to prove that these machines were not actually used. Plus from the legal standpoint, these machines were used actually as contingency machines so whether or not they were opened is beside the point," He said.
The lawyer said they will file the motion with the SC by the end of the week or early next week.
On June 28, Marcos filed a poll protest with the SC against winner Robredo.
Losing to Robredo by only 263,473 votes, Marcos in his petition alleged that Robredo's proclamation as VP is "null and void because the Certificate of Canvass (COC) generated by the Consolidation and Canvass System (CCS) are not authentic, and may not be used as basis to determine the number of votes that the candidates for vice-president received." (Sunnex)
