Bracing himself for a very expensive and protracted process, losing vice-presidential candidate Manuel “Mar” Roxas II on Friday filed an electoral protest against Vice President Jejomar Binay before the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET).

Roxas, the running mate of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, lost to Binay by a margin of 700,000 votes in the country’s first automated elections in May.

The former senator did not show up during the filing of his protest as only his lawyer, Joe Nathan Tenefrancia, filed it on his behalf. The protest was received by Clerk of Court Ma. Luisa Villarama.

Roxas paid a filing fee of P100,000 and an initial deposit of P200,000.

In his 102-page protest, Roxas urged the PET to conduct a manual revision of votes and order a complete and accurate count of an estimated three million votes that were not canvassed and considered stray or null votes by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Congress, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers (NBoC)

He also asked the tribunal to conduct a comprehensive, system-wide forensic analysis of the equipment and paraphernalia used during the first-ever computerized election in the country.

Roxas also raised in his protest arguments which had been rejected by the NBoC, leading to the proclamation of Binay as the duly elected vice president of the country last June 9.

He argued that the certificates of canvass (CoCs) that formed the basis of Binay’s proclamation were not duly and properly authenticated.

Roxas added that the election results used did not reflect the actual votes for the vice presidential race due to high incidence of null votes in the CoCs.

He also complained about the lowering of the canvassing threshold in at least 145 clustered precincts nationwide; the supposedly erroneous uploading of Final Testing and Sealing results from the clustered precincts; and the alleged fraud, anomalies, irregularities and statistical improbabilities in certain clustered precincts, particularly in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

In a press conference held in a restaurant in Ermita, Manila, Tenefrancia said their camp strongly believes that there was “misreading” of votes by the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines used in the May polls, particularly in three regions were Roxas won by a landslide in the vice presidential race. These are Regions 6 (Western Visayas), 7 (Central Visayas) and 8 (Caraga Region).

“The reading problem of the PCOS may be the cause for this high number of null votes,” Tenefrancia said.

Bienvenido Somera Jr., also a lawyer for Roxas, said the inclusion of the null votes would affect the results of the vice presidential contest and there is great chance that Binay’s proclamation will be nullified.

Somera said they have no other option but to bring their case to the PET, which resolves dispute involving the presidential and vice presidential contests.

PET is chaired by Chief Justice Renato C. Corona and the associate justices of the High Court are the members.

Since its creation in 1957, PET has never reversed a proclamation and unseated an incumbent.

Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago’s protest against former President Fidel Ramos over the 1992 elections was considered abandoned by PET after she ran and won for the Senate in 1995.

The PET followed the same vein to Sen. Loren Legarda, whose protest against former Vice President Noli De Castro was lost when she ran for the Senate in 2007.

Actor Fernando Poe Jr. died in 2004 before the PET could even rule on his protest against former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Meanwhile, Binay said he respects the right of Roxas in filing the electoral protest.

“We will respond extensively to the election protest of Mar Roxas at the proper time. Our lawyers have yet to receive a copy of said protest,” vice presidential spokesman Atty. JV Bautista said in a press statement on Friday.

Bautista stressed, however that Roxas should be “prepared to lose a second time” if his basis for filing the protest is the “null votes.”

“There is a reason why these votes are called “null votes.” Comelec Chairman Jose Melo himself asked the rhetorical question: “How can you count votes that are not there?” Bautista pointed out.

“The trust of our people in the electoral process has been restored by the May 10 national election. The national election has been fair, honest, peaceful and transparent. The national results also reflect the result of the exit polls conducted by reputable survey companies and media entities. In fact, the Social Weather Stations (SWS) exit poll results had a variance of less than one percent with the actual results,” he explained.

“Again, Mr. Roxas is well within his right to file a protest. (With a report from Madel R. Sabater)