Philippine Vice President Leni Robredo on Thursday, May 3 discredited a report in which an insider was quoted saying that her lead was lessened by 21,000 votes in the ongoing poll recount by the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET).

In the Philippine Star’s report, an insider said Robredo’s lead of 263,473 votes over former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos reportedly narrowed down to about 242,000.

In the official tally of votes, Robredo got 14,418,817 votes while Marcos got 14,155,344.

Furthermore, the insider said investigators allegedly discovered evidence of cheating and vote tampering. More wet ballots were found, and these smelled of chemicals. Some ballots had cigarette burns. Election returns (ERs) and voter’s receipts were reported missing, as well as figures that do not conform with official tallies and voter’s receipts mixed with pre-shaded ballots in many of the clustered precincts in Camarines Sur.

On her Twitter account, Robredo expressed her thoughts about The Star’s report claiming her lead over Marcos went down by over 21,000 as the process hits its fourth week.

“This is fake news. Propaganda meant to condition the mind of the public. 2 weeks ago, PR stunt was we already lost 5,000 votes. Both are fake. If you really won the elections, why the need for fake news?” the tweet read.

In addition to the Philippine Star, the Manila Times, the Manila Standard, and the Manila Bulletin carried the dwindling lead story, citing sources as unnamed individuals within the Supreme Court sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) despite PET not officially announcing this.

Before the manual vote recount — sought by Marcos who stated that the vice presidential election was marred by fraud — began on April 2, a PET adhoc committee member said the body will not issue partial results.

At the moment, Robredo’s camp is lobbying for the 25-percent threshold rule used in the 2016 elections.

The PET is currently applying the 50-percent threshold, meaning a vote can only be considered as valid if half of the circle is shaded.

In her motion for consideration, Robredo cited vote counting at Barangay Laganac in Balatan, Camarines Sur where she received 358 votes.

When the 50-percent standard was applied, a physical recount showed that she lost 12 votes; Marcos lost none.

“At the risk of belaboring the point, the physical count is now running inconsistent with the results based on the Election Returns, Statement of Votes by Precinct, Ballot Images and Voter’s Verifiable Audit Paper Trail (VVPAT),” the vice president said in a reconsideration pleading after her first attempt at appealing for the 25-percent threshold failed.

She added, “This misleads the Honorable Tribunal into believing that the VCM (Vote-Counting Machine) failed to accurately read and count the ballots. Thus, leading into a mistaken notion that protestant Marcos successfully proved substantial recovery in this Election Protest.”