(Eagle News) — Liberal Party senators on Thursday hit back at former Senator Bongbong Marcos after he accused the Presidential Electoral Tribunal hearing his electoral protest of bias against him.
“Hindi maganda na kwestyunin mo ang kredibilidad ng PET kung hindi pabor sa iyo ang mga desisyon,” LP president Francis Pangilinan said in a statement.
Senator Bam Aquino noted that Vice President Leni Robredo, the LP chair and against whom Marcos filed his protest, did not complain when other PET decisions were favorable to Marcos.
Aquino did not, however, say what these decisions were.
“It’s part of our judicial process. Sometimes, we may get the short end of the stick, but that’s the way court processes go and as a former lawmaker, he should know better,” Drilon said.
On Wednesday, Marcos said recent decisions of the PET–in particular its magistrate officer in charge Associate Justice Alfredo Caguioa— showed it was biased against him.
Caguioa was a classmate and appointee of former President Benigno Aquino III, Robredo’s partymate.
He said for instance that the PET, in April, gave him “only two working days” to pay his initial P36 million protest fee, at a time all the banks were closed because of the holidays.
“Robredo, on the other hand, did not to pay on the deadline set by the PET but Caguioa gave her an extension,” he said.
He cited another case when involving his motion “concerning the decryption and printing of ballot images in the SD cards.”
He said Caguioa granted this motion “on the condition that he paid for all the costs involved for the decryption process.”
Despite having paid for all the costs amounting to an additional P7 million, Marcos said “his legal team is still waiting for Caguioa’s order to give them the printed images — which has been ready since last year.”
“However, when Robredo asked for the soft copies of the ballot images, Caguioa immediately granted her request — without requiring her to pay a single centavo,” he said.