More than 14 million official ballots have been printed for the 2025 national and local elections (NLE), the Commission on Elections (Comelec) reported Thursday.
Based on the Comelec data, a total of 14,747,766 or 20.45% of the 72 million ballot requirement have been printed as of Thursday, February 6.
A total of 57,359,654 ballots have yet to be printed.
The poll body resumed printing the official ballots January 27, weeks after it was suspended after the Supreme Court (SC) issued temporary restraining orders against the disqualification of some aspirants.
Comelec chairperson George Erwin Garcia previously said the poll body will print at least 1.8 million official ballots daily, higher than its target of 1.5 million ballots per day as it still aims to complete the printing process by April 14.
They remain on track for their deadline so far but Garcia said the Comelec needs at least 300 additional personnel to fast-track the manual verification of the official ballots.
‘We are on track with the printing but the verification process is slow. For example, we printed 8 million ballots, the verified ballots will only be 2 million to 3 million. That’s slow,” he said.
The poll agency deputized the National Printing Office (NPO) last month, allowing the use of the four printing machines of the NPO and the two machines procured by South Korean firm Miru Systems Inc., to ensure the “proper, satisfactory, and timely” completion of the reprinting.
To expedite the verification, Garcia earlier said the Quezon City government lent the Amoranto Stadium for free as an additional site for the manual verification of the official printed ballots.
Meanwhile, the Comelec) said it will need P2.5 billion to fund the conduct of a separate schedule for the parliamentary elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Poll chairman George Garcia said the poll body will ask for the funding of the rescheduled BARMM election, saying “we don’t have a separate budget for P2.5 billion, which we will need for the honoraria of teachers [serving as election inspectors], lease of [counting] machines, the printing of ballots and to procure folders, indelible ink, and other paraphernalia.”
Earlier, Congress, through the bicameral conference committee of the House of Representatives and the Senate, reset the BARMM regional elections from May 12 to Oct. 13 this year, five months after the conduct of the national and local elections.
According to the Senate version of the bill, which was approved during the bicameral conference sessions, the October regional elections “shall not be treated as a special election and shall be considered a continuation of the 2025 national and local elections,” Vito Barcelo
“Any amount obligated prior to the resetting of the Bangsamoro election shall remain valid” and the required budget to conduct the new poll schedule “shall be charged against the current year’s appropriations of the Comelec or any available appropriations as may be identified by the Department of Budget and Management …,” Garcia pointed out.
The Comelec chief said that should the BARMM elections take place on May 12, the poll body will not spend anything, because the Comelec will only be splitting the costs of the national and municipal elections.