By this time, majority of interested Pinoys watching the progress of the protest recount filed by former senator Bongbong Marcos and presided over by the Presidential Electoral Tribunal are either exasperated or having a belly laugh.
After discovering that contents of the 38 of 40 ballot boxes were wet, it was surprising that Atty. Romulo Macalintal, counsel for defendant VP Maria Lourdes “Leni” Robredo, volunteered the info that a storm that hit Bato, Camarines Sur in December was the culprit that caused the ballots to get wet.
There was no initial response from the Comelec on that development. I suppose they were caught flat-footed so that the usually talkative Comelec Executive Director was nowhere to be found.
Anyway, Macalintal belabored his explanation, summing up his lines as if he were just picking ripened mangos from a tree.
Macalintal insulted – and continues to heap insult upon – the intelligence of Filipinos who barked back that how come many months, weeks and days have passed and the wet documents were still freshly wet and have not dried up?
It is clear as day that some hocus-pocus has again been committed by unseen hands to spoil what could have been a redeeming factor to legally settle (via due process) the lingering Marcos protest.
I will concede that Macalintal has developed his ingenuity because of his long experience in electoral lawyering. But I cannot see why he had to offer such a very lame excuse when it should be the Comelec who should be doing the explaining.
Suspicions are arising that since the questioned ballot boxes came from the bailiwick of Robredo, tampering was not a faraway reality.
This kind of logic is acceptable as our ethnical culture dictates.
What I cannot accept is Macalintal’s imposition of a fallacy that the storm watered the sealed ballot boxes and seeped inside, thus the ballots and other vital contents became wet.
My question: How can water from a pouring storm seep inside a sealed container if this had not been broken or that the boxes were not kept secured by the Comelec inside a room designated for the purpose?
Were the concerned ballot boxes intentionally left outside in the sun so that Macalintal’s soggy explanation would sell?
This custodial infidelity is a big sin committed by Comelec authorities in the area and by command responsibility, the national Comelec officials in Manila. I understand that in practice, it is the municipal treasurer who keeps custody of these ballot boxes after elections have been held.
But should not all Comelec materials, for that matter, be secured and intact whatever conditions arise?
Because the ballots and the images contained therein may no longer be accurately read and determined, will this situation not unnecessarily delay the counting process which consequently favors defendant Leni Robredo?
Will that not give the Robredo camp undeserved time and space to question the process and gain, not only media mileage but also comfortable edge?
Remember that Robredo leads Marcos with just over 260,000 votes.
In Tagalog, bakit pinagtatakpan ni Macalintal ang Comelec sa kanyang paliwanag na maski unggoy ay di maniniwala?
This is insane.
The truth is not only being twisted and thwarted, it is also being abused in favor of just a single party.
Truth is for all because it sets everybody free.
Macalintal does everything to win the case for his client. That is what a lawyer is supposed to do, right?
But as Geoffrey Chaucer’s play “Murder Will Out” tells, there are no secrets that time will not reveal. (Email your feedback to fredlumba@yahoo.com.) James 4:1: “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?” GOD BLESS THE PHILIPPINES!
