BAGUIO CITY – The Supreme Court (SC), acting as Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), accepted here yesterday the deposit of P36.023 million as initial payment of former Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. for the retrieval of the election materials, their turnover to the tribunal, and the recount of the votes in his election protest against Vice President Leni Robredo.
During its full court session, the PET “noted” the payment made by Marcos before the SC’s cash division in Manila last Monday.
The PET is composed of all the 15 members of the SC and is the sole judge of all contests relating to the election, returns and qualifications of the President or Vice President.
PET rules provide that a protestant is required to make a cash deposit to the tribunal of P500 per contested precinct if the protest require the bringing of the contested ballot boxes and election documents to the tribunal.
In Marcos’ protest, the former senator contested the results in 132,446 precincts in 39,221 clustered precincts spread in 27 provinces and cities.
In a resolution, the PET said that “based the foregoing, the cash deposit for Protestant is P500 for each of the 132,446 precincts, which amounts to P66,223,000.”
But since Marcos had deposited with the tribunal P200,000 upon the filing of his protest, he has to pay P66.023 million – P36.023 million last Monday and the balance of P30 million onJuly 14.
Robredo, on the other hand, was also ordered to make a cash deposit of P15.43 million in her counter-protest covering 31,278 precincts. (Rey Panaligan)
