‘What really happened during those 2 hours when the PPCRV, NAMFREL and the media were blind as to the election results from precincts nationwide?’
THE Commission on Elections has yet to respond to some issues on the election results dubbed by the Alyansa ng Nagkakaisang Mamamayan (ANIM) and the Church Leaders Council for National Transformation (CLCNT) as “very disturbing.” Among the unfortunate incidents were the following:
“All the Election Returns (ERs) from the precincts nationwide were not sent directly to PPCRV, NAMFREL, and the media, but were sent first to an intermediary server, the Data Center 3, that consolidated the election returns from the precincts before they were sent to the said election watchdogs and the media. This was in violation of Comelec’s own Comelec resolution 11098, Annex B (ACM Operation Procedures, 13 Dec. 2024).”
“Comelec, thru its Data Center 3, was the only one that performed the consolidation of all election returns from precincts nationwide, without the participation of PPCRV, NAMFREL and the media.”
“There was a long delay before Comelec, thru its Data Center 3 Server, released the first batch of the consolidated election results data, in the format agreed by the parties, to PPCRV, NAMFREL and the media. According to Eric Alviar, NAMFREL Secretary-General, the delay was around 2 hours from the closing of voting period. What really happened during those 2 hours when the PPCRV, NAMFREL and the media were blind as to the election results from precincts nationwide?”
“The Comelec, thru Data Center 3, merely supplied PPCRV, NAMFREL and the media with the consolidated election results data from precincts nationwide, which the latter used for their respective tallies of election results. Comelec was the only source of the complete election results data from precincts nationwide.”
“A vote discrepancy of around 5 million votes was discovered by Rappler and other media teams. Comelec said it was due to duplication in the transmission of some election returns. But the Comelec was the only one that conducted the ‘cleaning’ or ‘paglilinis’ process of the vote discrepancy. It deleted around 5 million votes. PPCRV, NAMFREL and the media were not present or involved in the clean-up process. Thereafter, Comelec merely supplied to PPCRV, NAMFREL and the media the cleaned or corrected date files.”
“In the 2019 midterm elections, a total of 1,170, 331 official ballots had overvotes. Meaning, 1,170,331 voters were disenfranchised in the 2019 elections. In the just-concluded 2025 midterm elections, NAMFREL reported that there were 17,028,780 overvotes. NAMFREL said that from 2010 to 2022 elections, the overvotes averaged only at 1.5% to 2.5%, but for these 2025 elections, the overvotes reached 29.89%, certainly a real cause for serious concern for all of us.”
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Pasig Mayor Vico Sotto has responded to an item that appeared here last week that the DILG should investigate his claim that barangays in his city have been receiving P3 million to P10 million a year from the government. I neglected to point out that I was referring to the past administration of Pasig, before he took over, and that was why I also stated in this column that there seemed to be a “very limited paper trail” to determine accountability for what may have been dubious cash releases for partisan purposes.
Sotto explained that these disbursements for financial aid under his watch have been “compliant with law, subject to Commission on Audit rules, and fully documented.” He further stated “that the provision of ‘aid to barangays’ by local government units (LGUs) is actually mandatory, pursuant to Section 324(c) of RA 7160 of the Local Gov’t Code”.
“For Pasig, the city government’s ‘aid to barangays’ – also sometimes referred to as a ‘subsidy’ or ‘assistance’ – included as a line item in our Annual Budget Ordinance. The fund is not simply cash that barangay officials can use however they please. Rather, it is utilized just like any other government fund.”
