Vice President Leni Robredo said Wednesday, August 17, that her camp will use the same documents submitted by her close rival in the vice presidential race, former Senator Bongbong Marcos, to defend herself from the electoral protest filed against her.
In her press conference, she added that her camp is confident Marcos’ protest will be dismissed by the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) because the affidavits of the witnesses have identical entries, even if they come from different provinces. She said this is a credible enough evidence to damn the case against her.
“They have so many affidavits from different provinces, but with the same content nung affidavit, as in word for word, pare-pareho,” Robredo said.
The lawyer-vice president also said that some of Marcos’ witnesses were not credible to corroborate his camp’s allegation of massive electoral cheating on May 9.
She remarked, “Iyong sa amin, napakaraming discoveries, at iyong discoveries na iyon galing din sa fi-nile nilang kaso. Halimbawa na lang ang mga affidavits, maraming nadiskubre na maraming mga witnesses na ginamit na hindi naman credible.”
“Kaya ano talaga, kailangan naming sagutin, kailangan pabulaanan ang mga paratang,” Robredo added.
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No bribe for witnesses
Robredo denied Marcos’ allegations about her camp paying witnesses using Liberal Party’s “financial and legal assistance.”
She said that she cannot even afford to pay her lawyer. “We don’t even have money to pay our lawyer, much more to bribe people,” she told the media.
And even if she had the money, Robredo said that she would never bribe people to win a case.
“Siguro kilala ninyo naman ako. Wala naman sa karakter ko na magbayad ng testigo,” she emphasized.
Robredo also asked Marcos to name the LP supporter who was allegedly helping her legally and financially in the electoral protest, while denying LP’s involvement in her case.
“Wala namang participation ang partido sa kaso, sa paghanda. Kaya siguro kung may ganyang allegations, sabihin kung sino sa LP,” she said.
Robredo submitted her 536-page affidavit asking the Supreme Court, acting as the PET, to dismiss Marcos’ electoral protest against her because the former Senator’s grounds in filing the case do not apply to an election protest. This ground referred to here was Marcos’ allegations that Smartmatic’s vote counting machines (VCMs) were used to transfer votes from Marcos to Robredo.
“Surely, this could not be a ground to contest the election of Robredo since an election protest is a contest between two candidates,” her affidavit said.
Sources: (interaksyon.com, cnnphilippines.com)
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