Bongbong team 'hallucinating' about electoral fraud in unused SD cards, says VP lawyer

MANILA - The camp of Vice President Leni Robredo on Tuesday berated the legal team of former Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. for spreading "wrong and self-serving information" to bolster their election protest.

This, after Marcos spokesperson Victor Rodriguez claimed that data found Monday in 13 supposedly unused SD cards and vote counting machines (VCMs) strengthens their position that there was cheating in the May 2016 elections.

Lawyer Romulo Macalintal, Robredo's lead counsel, said the Marcos camp was merely "dreaming or hallucinating" when they claimed the 13 SD cards are evidence of massive electoral fraud.

"The data from some of these 13 SD cards have not yet been decrypted, meaning they are still in encrypted form and have not yet been converted to its original form for an ordinary layman to understand their full contents," he reasoned.

"The camp of Marcos must have a bionic mind or bionic eyes to be able to read these encrypted data and immediately claim that there were electoral frauds committed in the said election."

He added that the unused VCMs are not even part of Marcos' protest, hence could not be the basis of any evidence to prove his case.

"They should remember that an election protest is not decided on the basis of SD cards but the ballots actually cast in the VCMs with the results compared with the election returns, statement of votes, and other election documents," he said.

Macalintal said the Marcos camp should respect the Presidential Electoral Tribunal and the electorate by refraining from making unfounded allegations.

"The Marcos camp should respect the competence and independence of the Supreme Court sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal and should not indirectly influence its members on the basis of non-existing, speculative and scattershot evidence of alleged "massive fraud," the lawyer said.

"If they cannot respect the court, they should at least respect the electorate and the entire Filipino people by not feeding them with wrong and self-serving information for political reason."

Insisting that the votes cast for Robredo were valid, Macalintal also stressed: "For sure, no electoral fraud was committed by Vice President Robredo... We are confident that the results of the verification and examination of the ballots will confirm her victory and the defeat of Marcos in the last election."