Leni Robredo should prioritize honest elections over her own interests

May 20, 2016

by Ilda

Philippine Congresswoman Leni Robredo’s true character is starting to show. This is evident in how quickly she dismissed calls for a systems audit to determine if the election results were affected by the script change done to the server by Smartmatic technicians in the middle of canvassing of votes on Election Day. From a reluctant candidate, Robredo morphed into someone very eager to become the country’s Vice President in just a few weeks. Her attitude has turned a lot of people off.

In need of a bit of humility: Leni Robredo

Robredo was quick to brag about her two hundred thousand vote lead based on unofficial results over her closest rival Senator Bongbong Marcos. Her camp said that it would be mathematically impossible for Marcos to overtake her since her margin is high. She is assuming of course, that there was no alteration done on the system to bring her numbers up. She doesn’t seem bothered at all that there was a breach in protocol when a Venezuelan technician – a foreigner – who had no authority, changed a program while votes were being canvassed. One can be forgiven for thinking that Robredo is only after her own interests rather than the interests of the people.

A lot of people are appalled at her audacity to declare herself the winner even before the official count was over. She even had the nerve to warn the public that Marcos Jr could be planning to rig the election results during the canvassing of votes in Congress. She reportedly expressed her fears of “a repeat of 1986 cheating during vote canvassing” could happen. She was referring to the alleged cheating that happened during the canvassing of votes for the Presidential Election between Former Presidents Ferdinand Marcos Sr and Cory Aquino. All the comparisons to Cory like being another “pious widow” by her supporters could be getting into her head because she is starting to play the victim card the way Cory did.  

Robredo’s ominous warning about being cheates doesn’t make any sense. If there is a party who has the ability to cheat, it would be the Liberal Party headed by the incumbent President Benigno Simeon Aquino. Since Robredo is part of the Liberal Party, she doesn’t have anything to worry about. And since she doesn’t have anything to worry about, she should be confident that Marcos Jr would not be able to manipulate the votes.

At the moment, Marcos Jr’s only recourse is to make a lot of demands for a systems audit and to keep crying foul over suspicious circumstances and anomalies that were too obvious not to be noticed by people closely monitoring the events. On election night, statistician David Yap was among the first to raise the alarm over a systematic shaving from Marcos Jr’s votes:

Lets Be FAIR

79.65% 530,043

80.40% 490,310

82.08% 421,499

82.71% 389,818

83.84% 345,373

84.43% 322,584

84.90% 293,957

85.78% 248,466

Okay, I’m calling it now – by 92% to 93% BBM and Leni will be tied. I’ve been tracking the returns and the increments make the pattern so obvious. 40k every 1%

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Starting from the 80% mark, BBM’s lead has been dwindling by 40k per 1%. Ang linis ng progression [translated: “the progression is so consistent”].

If not for people like Yap, the whistleblower from Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) wouldn’t have had the guts to speak out and report the unauthorized tampering of script by the Venezuelan Smartmatic technician.

People underestimated the resolve of Bongbong Marcos’s supporters.

And concerned citizens like Yap made a big difference to fraudulent activity being caught in the act this time around. While there were allegations of electoral fraud in previous elections in 2010 and 2013, there weren’t a lot of people closely monitoring the results then compared to this year. That should be credited to Marcos Jr’s supporters, indeed.

Robredo’s mistake is in underestimating the support Marcos Jr is getting from the public. She likes to believe that Filipinos do not want Marcos Jr as their VP. She is still in denial that a lot of people do not blame him for his father’s sins. Robredo should avoid insulting the people who voted for Marcos Jr because the system audit, if COMELEC allows it, could reveal that she actually lost to Marcos Jr by millions of votes. Marcos was leading by almost a million votes before the script change by a Smartmatic employee.

Frankly, I do not understand why Robredo thinks she is more popular than Marcos Jr considering the Iglesia ni Cristo gave their bloc votes to Marcos. If I were in Robredo’s shoes, I would practice a little bit of humility and ask myself why people would even want me as VP. She said so herself numerous times, she does not have any ambition to be President so why bother to run as VP? 

Robredo is starting to become her worst enemy like Mar Roxas who became too full of himself and failed to read the people. Robredo should be careful not to show too much arrogance since the people already hate her association with BS Aquino. Some think she is just a puppet of the Liberal Party men who plan on ousting Duterte one day. The Liberal Party have used a lot of people before like Niel Tupas and Teofisto Guingona III and Robredo may end up just like them one day – discarded and left on their own after they have reached their use-by dates.

If I were Leni, I would prove that I am for the sanctity of the votes by agreeing to Marcos Jr’s request to audit the system. If she had any conscience, the fact that the integrity of the election process has been comprised should bother her. There’s just no other way to prove if her win is legit other than to conduct an audit of the system.