Sen. Marcos tells Comelec to stop Po-El, Ma-El talks and comply with SC ruling on vote reciepts

Vice presidential candidate Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos, Jr. today urged the Commission on Elections to dismiss all talks of postponement of the elections or return to manual voting and waste no time in complying with the Supreme Court decision requiring vote counting machines to issue receipts.

Marcos made the call following the decision of the high court junking the motion for reconsideration of the Comelec and affirming its ruling that mandates the issuance of the receipts.

"The Supreme Court's swift action on this crucial issue is laudable. Now that these issues have been settled the Comelec should stop floating scenarios that would cast doubt on the integrity and credibility of the coming elections," said Marcos.

"All these talks about Po-El or postponement of elections and Ma-El or manual elections are just fueling speculations about possible plans to frustrate the will of the electorate," he added.

Marcos earlier pointed out that the Comelec's suggestion to move the date of the elections is contrary to the constitutional provision that the elections should be held on the second Monday of May.

He said that while Congress has the power to set another date of the polls, this is no longer possible for the coming May elections since the legislature is not in session to pass the appropriate law. Likewise, Marcos reiterated that the law calls for automated, not manual, elections.

"The Comelec now has no choice. It has to comply with the Supreme Court's ruling and do everything possible to fulfill its mandate to conduct a clean, honest, and credible elections," said Marcos.