The definitive ruling by the country’s highest court should be enough to settle the matter.
CLAIM: Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is the “real vice president”
RATING: False
Pro-Marcos Facebook page “BBM Youth Advocate” continues to pursue a denialist narrative, falsely claiming that 2022 presidential race frontrunner Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is the country’s “REAL VICE PRESIDENT.”
The erroneous claim was made in a social media card posted on May 5, proclaiming Marcos as “The Next President.” The post has so far been reacted to 6,200 times, shared 360 times, and commented on 320 times.
That Marcos is the “real vice president” is demonstrably contrary to fact.
Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo was proclaimed vice president on May 27, 2016 after winning 263,473 more votes than Marcos. Robredo won 14,418,817 votes, versus Marcos’s 14,155,344 votes.
Marcos announced the filing of a protest in June 2016, but this was junked by the Supreme Court sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal in a decision dated Feb. 16, 2021 and uploaded to the court’s website on April 19, 2022.
The magistrates, voting 15-0, voted to throw out the electoral protest. A recount in three provinces – Iloilo, Negros Oriental, and Camarines Sur, saw Robredo expanding her margin to 278,566 votes.
The court admonished Marcos, saying he had “failed to substantiate his allegations of massive anomalies and irregularities in protestee’s (Robredo’s) favor.”
“Instead, he chose to make sweeping allegations of wrongdoing and submitted incomplete and incorrect data. His abject failure to support his claims leaves this Tribunal with no other recourse but to dismiss his Protest.”
The definitive ruling by the country’s highest court should be enough to settle the matter.