Manual counting for 2025 elections shouldn’t be an option – solons

MANILA, Philippines — Regardless of challenges faced by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), the 2025 polls should not revert to manual counting due to the various issues it has previously caused, House of Representatives lawmakers said.

During a press briefing on Wednesday, Iloilo 1st District Rep. Janette Garin and Lanao del Sur 1st District Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong reminded the public of the problems encountered with the manual counting — like brown-outs, spates of violence, and inaccuracies between different tallies.

Garin even likened using manual counting to reverting to the “stone age” if Comelec adopts this system again.

“Ma’am Garin, I would just like to add that my biggest fear is if we revert back to manual. Because it exposes the election not only to fraud with a manual system, but even to violence, and believe me, we don’t want to revert back to that kind of practice,” Adiong said.

“We might experience brown-outs again […] Should we experience being inside precincts for days, where people fight because votes are being counted manually?  The tally they would read would be different to what was written?  Why are we going to go back to the stone age?  We are already at this point of time that we are following what the global community is doing in terms of elections,” Garin added.

According to Garin and 1-Rider party-list Rep. Ramon Rodrigo Gutierrez, the important thing now is that the allegations against Comelec should be discussed and resolved, so as not to taint the 2025 midterm elections.

“So someone raised complaints against Chairman (George) Garcia, he responded to it […] but my appeal is for all of these to be resolved ASAP, if there is proof, proceed.  If none, then can you stop that and let us go over more pressing problems of the country, as the more that these issues are dragging, the more that we are tainting our national and local elections, and this shouldn’t have a place in the direction that the Philippines is taking,” Garin said.

“If we look at the procedures of the Comelec, I think there is no question about the procedure of bidding by the Comelec.  The question […] on the procurement is more on the personalities involved or the actual parties that are bidding,” Gutierrez said.  “So we are concerned about why this is becoming an issue until now.”

Issues against Comelec and Miru Systems — the company tapped by the poll body to implement its automated election system (AES) — came out last July 9 after Sagip party-list Rep. Rodante Marcoleta claimed that at least P1 billion worth of funds were transferred from different banks, including those based in South Korea, to 49 offshore accounts supposedly linked to a Comelec official.

Marcoleta refused to divulge the identity of the Comelec official and his or her ranking in the press briefing, but later that day, Comelec Chairperson George Garcia said that it was him being alluded to by the lawmaker.

READ: P1-B moved from foreign banks to poll exec’s offshore accounts – Marcoleta

According to Marcoleta, there were certain developments in Comelec’s AES procurement when fund transfers occurred, like a money transfer on June 22, 2023, where a deposit worth $148,000 was made by a certain Stephen Schultz/Kyong Baek from Standard Chartered Bank Jong Ro Main Branch in South Korea to Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore.

This supposedly happened alongside Comelec’s declaration of the past vote counting machines (VCMs) as unserviceable.

INQUIRER.net contacted Garcia back then, and the poll body official sent copies of a letter he wrote to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).  In the letter to the NBI, Garcia requested an investigation regarding the allegations that he has offshore accounts, which were spreading online.

READ: Comelec chief urged to clarify, address alleged bribery

Due to the issues raised, Garcia admitted last July that the country may resort to manual counting should the Supreme Court rule against Miru.

READ: Garcia: Comelec may resort to manual should SC rule against Miru

But Adiong said that reverting to manual counting would go against Republic Act No. 9369 which authorized the Comelec to do automated elections.

“I hope the Comelec, the Commission will not see that as an option because we have an automated law, and that would be a violation of the automated election law,” he said.

“That would be not only a violation but it is more costly than the automation ah, if we do manual counting again, imagine teachers would go to polling centers, then transfer ballots to schools and count manually, so it’s really something that we should never experience again,” he added.