Here’s Why Comelec Will Eventually Declare Bongbong Marcos as Duly Elected Vice President

The manual vote recount for the vice-presidential race in the 2016 elections is now on its second week. But this early, I can personally predict that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) will eventually declare former senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr as the duly elected vice president. And no, this is not about politics.

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To start with, I did not vote for Bongbong Marcos nor Leni Robredo for vice president. I accept the fact that my candidate lost, and I have already moved on. But what I cannot accept is that Robredo won in a very questionable manner. So did the Liberal Party (LP) cheated just to make her win because they cannot cheat President Rodrigo Duterte? As of this moment, that’s a million-peso question that nobody can answer with a solid proof.

Now, let’s look at the scenario of the VP vote recount. With the Supreme Court (SC) sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), there have been reports about wet ballots, missing audit logs, as well as unused and excess ballots with votes for VP Leni. All of them were found in Camarines Sur, which as we all know is “baluarte” of Robredo.

Are these irregularities show that there was cheating in favor of Leni Robredo? Again, this is very hard to prove, and I’m not a lawyer so I cannot give my opinion about them. However, I have a strong feeling that the PET’s decision to deny Robredo’s motion to apply the 25 percent threshold for ballot shading will cause Bongbong Marcos to win.

"The Court is not aware of any Comelec Resolution that states the applicability of a 25% threshold; and the Tribunal cannot treat the Random Manual Audit Guidelines and Report as proof of the threshold used by the Comelec," the PET said in a notice of resolution dated April 10, and signed by SC Clerk of Court Edgar Aricheta. But why is only Robredo’s camp that’s asking PET to apply the 25 percent threshold, and not also Marcos’ camp?

Well, it’s because a lot of ballots with votes for her will not pass the 50 percent threshold. As we all know, Marcos lost to Robredo by only 263,473 votes, and because of the 50 percent threshold rule, Marcos will now beat Robredo.

So where the ballots with 25 percent shading likely did came from? Here’s a logical explanation. During election day, most voters are not in a hurry and have properly shaded the ballots to make sure that their votes will be counted, right? Therefore, the ballots with 25 percent pre-shaded were made by people who were in a hurry.



But who were the people in a hurry to pre-shade the oval before the elections? Let’s ask the one who complained to the PET to apply the 25 percent threshold. And why did they not completely pre-shaded the oval to make sure that their votes will be counted? Well, in that case, common sense tells us that voters will easily notice the cheating.

Contributed by Severo Nicdao