STATEMENT BY ATTY. ARMANDO MARCELO
LEGAL COUNSEL OF VP NOLI
AMPGP LAW OFFICE
July 7, 2005
“YOU MUST COME TO COURT WITH CLEAN HANDS,
LOREN”
With the advent of
Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano’s revelations came blessed
vindication for the Hon. Noli de Castro, the duly-elected Vice
President of the Republic.
Losing vice-presidential
candidate Loren Legarda had previously capitalized on the much
publicized wiretapped conversations to bewail her unsupported claims of
widespread cheating in the vice-presidential race. Legarda, however,
conveniently failed to mention that in almost all of the provinces
mentioned in the said conversations, particularly, provinces in
Mindanao, she incurred the highest number of votes; thereby effectively
negating her claims of being cheated.
Former Commissioner
Garcillano’s sworn disclosure of Legarda having conversed with him
during the height of the May 2004 national elections resoundly confirms
that Legarda came to the highest court of the land bearing her
righteous protest with unclean, impure hands; that all this time
Legarda had been wearing the fraudulent mask of an alleged victim while
she desperately hid her filthy hands with fingers crossed, hoping
against hope that her duplicity will never see the light of day. Now
that her pretension of virtuous indignation had been exposed, Legarda
must, and should have the courage to admit that she does not, and has
never possessed the moral worth and right to point an accusatory finger
at anyone, much less the duly-elected
Vice-President.
Incidentally, in an attempt to downplay the expose made by former
Commissioner Garcillano and its crippling effect on her protestations,
Legarda frantically, albeit erroneously, stated that the
Counter-Protest filed by the Hon. Vice-President against her shortly
after she posted the required deposit to fund the recount, was a
dilatory tactic designed to derail the proceedings in the pending
electoral protest before the Supreme Court. Had Legarda bothered to
familiarize herself with the Rules of the Presidential Electoral
Tribunal, she would have known that it is impossible for the Hon.
Vice-President to belatedly file a Counter-Protest at this stage to
delay the proceedings.
The Counter-Protest was
filed by the Hon. Vice-President de Castro as far back as 5 August 2004
and was incorporated in his Answer to Legarda’s Protest. Although
unnecessary, the Vice-President was compelled to file the same to prove
that he actually won over Legarda by an infinitely higher margin of
votes.
