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Former Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos has to accept the 2016 election results if he plans to run for a national post in the 2022 elections, Philippine Vice President Leni Robredo said on Monday, January 20.
“If he wants to run again, he can. That’s his right,” she said in Filipino during an interview.
She added, “But if he runs again, he just has to make sure that he will accept the election results because if he can’t accept the results of the election, he will just drag down all the institutions.”
Marcos filed an electoral protest before the Supreme Court (SC), sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), after he lost to Robredo in the 2016 vice presidential election.
Robredo’s lead over Marcos increased by almost 15,000 votes, after the PET’s revision and recount of ballots from the pilot provinces – Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental – Marcos chose.
Following this, Robredo has asked the tribunal to dismiss the electoral protest filed by Marcos.
The former senator, on the other hand, asked the tribunal to annul the votes in the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao and Basilan due to alleged election violence, regardless of the test recount results.
He previously announced that he plans to run for a national post in 2022.
“I can be a congressman, I can be a senator. If I retire, I can be governor in Ilocos Norte,” Marcos said.
In response, Robredo advised: “Everyone who will run for office should accept the results of the elections. If you lose and you won’t accept it, it would be better not to run anymore.”
Robredo also laughed off Marcos’ notion to revise history textbooks after he claimed that his family was treated unfairly in the history books.
According to him, the history books were full of “propaganda” forwarded by their political rivals to besmirch their reputation.
“That one is slightly hilarious,” Robredo said in Filipino.
“I agree that there is (something) lacking in our education system, in the sense that our students were not taught well on the effects of the dictatorship before. Because if it’s effective, the things that happened during those days should no longer be happening now,” she added.
