Former Vice President Jejomar Binay said on Wednesday he should have been “first runner up” in the presidential elections back in 2016 if no cheating happened.

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Binay placed fourth in the previous national elections, which saw the rise of President Rodrigo Duterte to the highest government seat. Former cabinet official and Senator Manuel Roxas placed second while Senator Grace Poe landed on the third spot.

“Ang number one [na] dahilan kung bakit ako natalo ay ‘yung cheating sa eleksyon [The number one reason reason why I lost is because of cheating in the eleksyon],” he said in a news forum.

“Ako talaga at the worst, [I should have been] number two,” he said.

According to Binay, he should have had around 13 million of the total votes cast, when he only got over 5,416,140 votes in the final tally. Duterte, meanwhile, got a whooping 16,601,997 votes.

According to Binay, the counting of votes under his name stopped after it reached over five million.

He said, however, that he did not pursue an electoral protest for “practical reasons,” citing that it would require him millions of funds to pursue a case.

“Unang-una milyong piso ang gagastusin mo sa protesta, wala ka namang certainty na mananalo (First of all, you will spend millions of pesos for the protest even if you don’t have certainty that you will win),” he said.

Binay said filing a protest would only cause him stress since he will raise his expectations that he indeed won in the elections.

He also said it’s better to just accept the situation, saying it was probably “what God wants.”

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Was he hurt on the supposed cheating?

“Nagdaramdam ka rin sa pandarayang nangyari….[but] not to the point na magalit ako… Magagalit ka sa mundo, eh di matetensyon ka lang.”

(You will also be hurt on the cheating that happened…but not to the point that I was angry…You will only be stressed if you will be angry at the world.) /jpv

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