One of former senator Bongbong Marcos’ witnesses supporting his electoral protest against denied issuing an affidavit and affixing her signature on such affidavit.
On what was supposedly her affidavit, Myra Nacalaban Laude from Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu said that the document dated August 9, 2016 supporting Marcos’ claim that electoral fraud happened last May 9 elections was “fictitious,” ABS-CBN News reported.
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“On August 9, 2016 at around 4:00 pm an affidavit was presented to me and such affidavit claimed that I was a witness in behalf of the protest filed by Bongbong Marcos,” Laude was quoted saying.
“Upon inspection I noticed that the signature was not mine and upon further inspection I can say I never issued such affidavit,” she added.
Marcos spokesman, Vic Rodriguez, issued a statement denying that their camp is faking witnesses’ accounts to substantiate their claims of electoral fraud.
He told the media, “Why will we do that? It is not going to advance or promote the election protest of Senator Marcos. In fact the reason why the election protest was filed by Senator Marcos is the search for the truth. Now you cannot find the truth by employing lies.”
Rodriguez said that the former Senator pointed to the Liberal Party for forcing their witnesses to withdraw their support of Marcos’ claim.
“That’s not surprising because we are aware as soon as we started gathering people to execute our affidavits, some officials of the Liberal Party did some counter-operations in the provinces involved, like Masbate, Cebu City, where witnesses [were] told to recant their statements,” he said.
He added that the other camp even convinced some witnesses with money to back out of Marcos’ protest.
Rodriguez said that Marcos’ camp is not concerned about one witness disowning her affidavit because they have enough witnesses to prove that electoral fraud did happen.
Marcos filed an election protest against Robredo at the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) on June 29, a day before the vice president took office.
Sources: (news.abs-cbn.com, gmanetwork.com)
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