Vice President Jejomar Binay has asked for more time to file his answer to the election protest filed by former Senator Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez disclosed on Friday.

Marquez said the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, received a motion from Binay’s camp seeking for a 10-day extension to respond to Roxas’ protest.

This developed as Roxas’ protest landed with Associate Justice Lucas P. Bersamin following a re-raffle held yesterday morning.

A re-raffle was held after Associate Justice Diosdado M. Peralta to whom the case was first assigned inhibited. Peralta and two other magistrates – Associate Justices Antonio T. Carpio and Mariano C. Del Castillo – begged off from handling the protest due to their ties with the parties involved.

Roxas, who lost to Binay by more than 700,000 votes in the country’s first automated elections in May, filed his election protest last July 9.

Three days later, Chief Justice Renato C. Corona issued an order declaring Roxas’ protest “sufficient in form and substance” as he required Binay to submit his answer within 10 days from receipt of the order.

A check with the PET revealed that Binay received Corona’s order together with the copy of the protest on July 13, which means that the deadline for him to submit his answer expired on July 23.

Corona issued the order in his capacity as ex-officio chairman of PET, which resolves disputes involving the presidential and vice presidential contests.

In his 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 and Congress, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers (NBoC).