Padilla’s lawyer Romulo Macalintal said that “in a unanimous Order[1] promulgated last August 20, Second division Comelec Commissioners Al Parreno, Arthur Limand Sheriff Abas, ruled that the votes claimed by Gambito during the revision and recount of the ballots from the 76 pilot precincts were not enough to overcome Padilla’s vote-lead of 19,155 upon proclamation.”
Macalintal received the Comelec verdict only last Tuesday.
In his protest, Gambito questioned the votes of Padilla from 379 clustered precincts on the grounds of alleged“massive vote-buying and misreading or miscalculation of votes due to faulty PCOS machines and defective or tampered compact flash cards or CF Card.”
Macalintal noted that “to expedite the proceedings, the Comelec directed Gambito to select 20 percent of the 379 clustered precincts which would best describe and demonstrate his allegations of frauds and irregularities for a post-recount determination of the merit or legitimacy of the election protest.”
He recalled that “Gambito chose 76 clustered precincts where the ballots therein were revised and recounted by the Comelec.”
“In its Order, Comelec found that Gambito was not able to prove any substantial recovery from these 76 clustered precincts to prove the merit or legitimacy of his protest. The possible maximum vote that Gambito could recover from his 76 pilot precincts was only 426 votes and that even under the best-case scenario Padilla will still beat him by 16,527 votes,” Macalintal noted.
He said that “Gambito failed to establish reasonable recovery under the best-case scenario principle from his pilot precincts that would warrant the continuation of his protest. Thus, there is no reason for this Division to proceed with the recount of the remaining protested precincts.”
“In effect, the Order proved beyond doubt that there were no misreading nor miscalculations committed by the PCOS machines or any defective or tampered CF Cards, nor any massive vote-buying that marred the lawful election of Padilla contrary to Gambito’s baseless allegations”, Macalintal also said.
