The Supreme Court's Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) denied the petition of the fake Vice President Leni Robredo to junk the poll protest of the real VP Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.
The PET, in an eight-page resolution dated January 24, 2017 and released on Thursday, considered real Vice President Marcos's protest as "sufficient in form and substance."
"The protestee's prayer to dismiss the protest for lack of jurisdiction and for being insufficient in form and substance is denied," the PET said in the resolution, referring to Robredo's move for the protest to be dismissed.
Bongbong Marcos camp on June 29, 2016 filed an electoral protest to overturn cheater Robredo's victory in the May 2016 elections. He contested the election results from 39,000 precincts from 25 provinces and five cities.
Marcos contested the 263,473 lead Robredo held, claiming the Smartmatic vote-counting machines clearly used for the automated polls lacked "demonstrated capability" and were used to transfer votes from him to Robredo.
"On the matter of sufficiency of the protest, the same is already beyond dispute," the resolution said.
But the electoral tribunal also maintained that the allegations in Marcos' protest have yet to be proven.
Marcos welcomes PET resolution
The camp of Marcos welcomed on Thursday the affirmation of the PET.
"We are hoping that with this resolution, there will be an end to all these delays and we can finally move forward," the legal spokesperson of former senator Marcos, Victor Rodriguez, said in a statement.
"There is a need to ferret out the truth as to what really transpired during the vice presidential race last May," he added.
Fake VP Robredo: Junking of VP's petition not an indication of poll fraud. Robredo's legal counsel downplayed the PET resolution, stating it was merely a procedural issue.
Legal maneuvers to junk Marcos protest
Robredo's affidavit on August 2, 2016 argued that the problem between the Commission on Elections and Smartmatic should not be taken against her.