Former Sen. Loren Legarda yesterday made a cash deposit of P3.38 million with the cashier of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) and sought an expeditious resolution of her election protest filed against Vice President Noli de Castro.
The cash deposit was in compliance with a PET resolution last Feb. 28. Earlier, Legarda had made a cash deposit of P500,000.
Last year, Legarda also deposited R4.08 million to the PET’s cashier to start the recount phase of her protest. The amount covered primarily the re-tabulation of election returns (ERs) from Lanao del Sur, where Legarda said, she was able to prove that massive cheating was undertaken in the May 10, 2004 presidential elections.
At the same time, Legarda asked the Supreme Court, sitting as the PET, to assign 150 revisor teams to speed up the resolution of her election protest which covers a total of 44 provinces and cities.
"I have put squarely behind this election protest my very limited resources so the Filipino people may take back what was stolen in the 2004 election," Legarda said.
‘‘Though the recount has not yet reached halfway, I believe that at this point I have exposed the truth to the public that Mr. De Castro’s questionable hold on the vice presidency was truly propped by electoral fraud," she added.
In an urgent motion filed last month through lawyers Romulo Makalintal and Alberto Agra, De Castro asked the PET to increase the number of revision committees by at least 25 to speed up the resolution of the protest.
De Castro said that with the present 25 committees, which started working on Dec. 12, 2005, the revision phase alone of the 124,404 contested precincts would take until December, 2013.
He added that since the 124,404 ballot boxes could not be used by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in the 2007 elections, the government may have to spend R186 million to buy new boxes at the rate of P1,500 per box.
He had earlier asked the PET to finish the revision proceedings within a period of one year or less "not only for my benefit but even more, the electorate."
He pointed out that Rule 29 of the 2005 Rules of the Tribunal provides that "the revision or correction, once started, shall continue without interruption until completed within 180 working days from the date it was ordered…." (Rey G. Panaligan)
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