Robredo lawyers ask PET: Allow both parties to witness ballot box retrieval

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Leni Robredo on Thursday asked the Supreme Court sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal to allow her camp and the team of former Sen. Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. to witness the ballot retrieval process in their electoral case.

Robredo through her lawyers Romulo Macalintal and Maria Bernadette Sardillo filed a motion for clarification regarding the December 5 resolution issued by the tribunal.

Her lawyers said that following the resolution, the tribunal only allowed the delivery of the ballot boxes while the parties would not be able to see the conditions of the boxes.

Marcos' camp identified three pilot provinces for the electoral case: Robredo's home province of Camarines Sir, Iloilo and Negros Oriental.

Robredo's camp raised that "the parties will not be able to verify the completeness of the ballot boxes and the correctness of the items being collected and retrieved."

READ: SC upholds integrity of 2016 polls, orders ballot boxes retrieved

Robredo's camp also stressed that allowing both camps to witness the process would enable the parties to "make preliminary observation" of the state of the ballot boxes, election documents and paraphernalia.

Marcos, the son of the ousted Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, accused of committing massive human rights violations and corruption during his more than two decades in office, alleged that Robredo cheated her way to the second highest office in the land.

He lost to Robredo by a slim margin of about 260,000 votes in the 2016 national elections.

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