Survey frontrunner and UniTeam presidential bet Bongbong Marcos Jr. maintained that the 2016 vice presidential election results where Leni Robredo was declared the winner wasn’t the ‘proper results’ even as he urged supporters to be more vigilant this time.
During a press briefing in Cagayan de Oro City on Tuesday, April 26, Marcos said he spent the last six years studying the country’s automated election system and learned a lot of things including its weaknesses.
“We spent the last six years studying the problem. So we learned many things, how, what happened in 2016,” the former senator told reporters.
Marcos lodged an electoral protest to contest the 2016 poll results which was eventually junked by the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), in favor of Robredo.
“Even if di kami nanalo sa protesta I think we have proven to most, to everyone that it wasn’t the right result. It wasn’t the proper result,” Marcos said; alluding to the allegation that he was cheated.
Imahe mula sa Facebook| Bongbong Marcos
“To be philosophical about it, God has other plans for me, and [being] vice president is not part of it,” he added.
He also believes the automated election system is much better now since its weaknesses have been identified as shown in the recent Smartmatic security breach.
The son and namesake of the late strongman then went on to warn the public to be more vigilant and guard their votes.
“Whoever you’re voting for, guard your vote. Bantayan ninyo nang mabuti at sana iyung botong iyun ay para sa amin,” he told the press.
But even if those votes does not belong to them, Marcos added, it is important that all of them must be registered and counted in the final tally of the national election.
Imahe mula sa The New York Times
In 2016, Marcos lost to Robredo by a measly 260,000 votes; sparking allegations of cheating and ‘Smartmatic manipulation’ of numbers towards the end of final counting.
Robredo is currently a far second and trailing behind Marcos in almost all surveys conducted over the past months with less than two weeks before the upcoming May 9 election.