MANILA—The Senate electoral tribunal has dismissed the protest filed by Francis Tolentino against Leila de Lima in connection with the 2016 senatorial race.

The tribunal granted Tolentino's motion withdrawing his electoral protest against De Lima.

The notice of resolution, dated February 21 and released on April 4, terminates the entire electoral protest filed in June 2016.

The same resolution also granted De Lima's motion to make public the results of the recount, which covered 319,228 ballots from 654 clustered precincts that were earlier examined by the tribunal.

The tribunal also confirmed it did not find any proof of the alleged irregularities or fraud in the 2016 elections, which supposedly led to Tolentino's defeat.

"The results negated his allegations that preloaded SD cards were used or that his votes were not counted," it said.

In his protest, Tolentino alleged his votes were not counted, or the SD cards were preloaded. He also said there was an illegal bypass of the automated election system (AES).

The tribunal said Tolentino failed to prove his accusations.

"As to the alleged illegal bypass of the AES, the evidentiary weight of the evidence presented by (Tolentino), both documentary and testimonial, was not taken into consideration by the tribunal as the reception of evidence relative thereto was not completed," it pointed out.

Tolentino is currently running for senator under the administration's PDP-Laban party.

In the latest Pulse Asia survey, he ranked between Nos. 10 to 16.