Resumption of ballot printing eyed by Friday or Saturday

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is targeting to start the reprinting of the official ballots for Eleksyon 2025 by Friday or Saturday this week, according to spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco.

“Balak po ng Comelec simulan ang pag-iimprenta ng balota, kung hindi po sa Biyernes, ay sa Sabado po,” Laudiangco said in an interview on Balitanghali.

This comes after the poll body decided to move the reprinting of ballots following the issuance of the Supreme Court (SC) of fresh temporary restraining orders (TROs) against the disqualification of some aspirants.

Laudiangco said they do not expect this to have a major impact on the preparations for the upcoming polls.

“Hindi naman po masyadong nakaapekto kasi nga po mula po nung unang limang TROs ay nalagyan na po natin ng add function 'yung ating Election Management System (EMS) kaya ang ginawa na lang po natin ay binago natin 'yung candidates database, dinagdag ang dalawang pangalan na pinag-uutos ng kataas-taasang hukuman at nag-generate po tayo muli ng panibagong 1,667 na iba't ibang uri ng balota,” Laudiangco told “Balitanghali”.

(The new TROs did not affect the printing process because we added a new function into the EMS after the first SC rulings. We just changed the database, added the new names, and generated new ballots.)

Earlier, poll chairperson George Erwin Garcia said the Comelec would require two to three days to make adjustments to its database, conduct serialization on the official ballots, and produce 1,600 ballot faces should the SC release new TROs on the disqualification of aspirants vying for positions in the upcoming national and local elections (NLE).

“Kung sakali na meron, mga two to three days kaya na namin matapos ang lahat,” said Garcia.

(If there will be new TROs, then we will need two to three days to finish the preparations for the printing.)

It can be recalled the Comelec started the printing of the 73 million ballots for this year’s polls on January 6 but was halted following the issuance of the High Court of a TRO against the disqualification of several local bets in the May 12 midterm polls.

This resulted to the waste of six million printed ballots, with a printing cost of around P132 million.

—VAL, GMA Integrated News

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