Ms. Ronadale Zapata
83321148/8334507
LOREN SHOULD
REFRAIN FROM MEDIA GRANDSTANDING – DE CASTRO
13 October 2005
“Defeated Vice Presidential candidate
Loren Legarda should place more attention on her protest rather than
spend too much time grandstanding for the benefit of media,” said
election lawyers from the Andres Marcelo Padernal Guerrero and Paras
(AMPGP) Law Offices.
During a press conference yesterday,
Legarda denounced the statements of the Vice President, calling him a
“hypocrite” for saying that he has only the best interest of the
Filipino people in mind in defending himself from Legarda’s election
protest.
“Legarda should refrain
from media grandstanding,” said Atty. Armando Marcelo, counsel for the
Vice President. “She has made it a habit to give a
negative reaction every time we try to defend the Vice President.
She is merely showing that she has no
respect for the proceedings already pending before the Supreme Court,
and she would rather air out her grievances in media.”
According to lawyers of De Castro, it is
the Vice President’s responsibility to the Filipino people to spare
them the enormous costs of a baseless protest. The
motion to dismiss the protest was filed precisely to expedite the
conclusion of the protest. “If the protest is
taking some time, the reason could be that the issues raised involved
difficult questions of law, and it took some time for the Supreme Court
to resolve them,” the lawyers added.
“By their nature, motions are meant to be resolved quickly, and we
never filed them to cause delay,” said Atty. Marcelo. “They
were precisely filed in the hope of arriving at a quick solution to the
issues raised by Legarda. She should be careful in
complaining about delay, since it has been the Supreme Court that has
dictated the pace of the protest ever since the proceedings started.”
As far as the Vice President is concerned, whether the issues were
resolved the quick way through the dismissal of the protest, or through
the full route via re-canvassing of ballots, the end result would still
be the same.
The people will still know that he never
cheated in the elections, and that he was the duly elected vice
president of the country. “I believe in the
judicial system, and the integrity of the PET, thus I and my lawyers
have always worked within the system.”
Ref. VPMEDIA 05-147