MANILA, Philippines—Vice President Jejomar Binay failed to meet the deadline on Friday to file his reply to the election protest lodged by former Sen. Manuel Roxas II.
Instead of submitting his formal reply, he asked the Supreme Court to give him 10 more days to do so.
Court Administrator and concurrent spokesperson Midas Marquez said the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), received a motion from Binay’s lawyers asking for a 10-day extension to formally reply to Roxas’ electoral protest.
Roxas, President Aquino’s Liberal Party running mate, lost to Binay by around 700,000 votes in the first national automated elections last May 10.
He filed his election protest on July 9 basically asking the PET to conduct a manual revision of votes.
He also asked the PET to count some three million votes that were considered stray or null votes by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Congress when it canvassed the presidential and vice presidential results as the National Board of Canvassers.
