MANILA (UPDATE) - The Supreme Court (SC), acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), deferred action Tuesday on vice-presidential candidate Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.'s electoral protest against Vice President Leni Robredo.

Deliberation on the case was reset to Oct. 8, a Supreme Court source told ABS-CBN News.

The son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos had claimed "massive cheating" caused him to lose to Robredo in the 2016 vice-presidential race by some 260,000 votes, which she denied.

He had sought to declare Robredo's victory as void; called for a recount of votes; and that election results in Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, and Basilan be annulled on the grounds of terrorism, intimidation, and harassment of voters.

The high court earlier announced that it has finished its manual recount of ballots in 3 provinces Marcos chose, which supposedly best exemplified cases of fraud.

The pilot recount covered 5,417 voting precincts in Iloilo, Camarines Sur, and Negros Oriental.

The composition of the high court is set to change soon, with Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin retiring on Oct. 18 and Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio on Oct. 26.

-with a report from Mike Navallo, ABS-CBN News