MANILA, Philippines - Congress will not consider Sen. Manuel "Mar" Roxas II camp's protest regarding the "null votes", House Speaker Prospero Nograles said on Thursday.

"The public controversy regarding the number of 'null votes', which were not read by the PCOS (Precinct Count Optical Scan) machines, allegedly numbering more than a million votes for President and an allegedly whopping 2.6 million for vice president, won't be considered by the Joint Canvass Committee," Nograles said on Thursday.

As of June 2, the canvassed votes for Roxas, who vied for the Vice Presidential race in the May 10 polls, is less than 200,000 behind those of Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay's.

On Wednesday, Roxas' lawyer, Joey Tenefrancia, said that they were already drafting a petition for a random manual audit in areas where there are a significant number of null votes for vice president.

Nograles said that instead of bringing the issue before Congress, Roxas's camp should just file a petition before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.

He said the null votes issue is "beyond the function of the joint congressional canvass body."

"This is an issue that is proper in an election protest in the proper venue where votes can be recounted swiftly by merely cross checking the actual votes cast and the electronic image and pictures of the ballots..." the House speaker said.

Nograles added that verification process, which can be conducted by the proper electoral tribunal, "won't take too much time" and resolved "as fast as the elections were conducted."

The House speaker also hinted an advise to Roxas and the Liberal Party. "That's the automation that we have implemented under the 14th Congress."

Tenefrancia had insisted that the joint congressional canvassing committee may order the opening of the ballot boxes and verify the null votes as stated in its approved canvassing rules.

JV Baustista, lawyer of Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, however, countered that the Constitution dictates that the national board of canvassers can only verify questioned certificates of canvass through the election returns.

Bautista said that “unless there is very clear evidence of fraud or malfunction in the process that it will invalidate the count,” the national board of canvassers cannot go back to examining ballots used in the May 2010 poll. – Report from RG Cruz, ABS-CBN News