Comelec receives over 200 complaints for vote-buying, vote-selling, ASR

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) Committee on Kontra Bigay (CKB) has received over 200 complaints against alleged vote-buying, vote-selling, and abuse of state resources (ASR) with just a few days left before Eleksyon 2025.

Commissioner Ernesto Maceda Jr., chairperson of CKB, said they received a total of 271 complaints as of Thursday, May 1.

Of the figures, 169 cases constituted vote-buying and vote-selling, and 80 were related to the ASR.

The regions with the highest reports include Calabarzon, Central Luzon, National Capital Region, Mimaropa, and Bicol Region while the areas with the most number of complaints were Laguna, Marikina City, Rizal, Oriental Mindoro, and Bulacan.

“By comparison, and you make your analysis on this, nung 2022 NLE, ang total reports na natanggap ng Comelec ay 1,226 and ngayon ho with 12 days remaining, 271 ang aming natatanggap," Maceda Jr. told Balitanghali.

(By comparison, and you make your analysis on this, in the 2022 NLE, the reports we received were 1,226, and now, with 12 days remaining, we received 271.)

“So, it's either mas bumaba 'yung incidents or depending on what happens when we reach election day, baka tumataas din naman po ang pagre-report ng mga tao,” he said.

(So it's either it went down or it may increase depending on the developments come election day.)

The committee last week said at least 213 national and local candidates were issued with show-cause orders (SCOs) for alleged vote-buying, vote-selling, and ASR.

Maceda Jr., for his part, reiterated that candidates with pending cases may still be disqualified or not be proclaimed.

“Siguro dapat alalahanin nung ating mga botante ang dangal at ang kahalagahan ng kanilang boto, this is the only way by which they can contribute to governance and the running of their their nation. It's part of nation,” he said.

(The voters should remember the importance of their votes.)

Stricter measures

In February, the Comelec said it will impose stricter measures to curb vote-buying, vote-selling and prevent the ASR for the May elections as it relaunched the committee mandated to address vote-buying and vote-selling. It also partnered with e-wallet applications such as GCash and Paymaya to address vote-buying via digital transactions.

ASR refers to the misuse of government resources, whether material, human, coercive, regulatory, budgetary, media-related, or legislative, for electoral advantage. This usually includes the use of government facilities and vehicles for campaign-related activity, but Maceda said the Comelec will also presume ASR is committed if the disbursement of aid or subsidies came with campaign materials or with candidates and their families.

Also constituted as ASR are the use of government-funded media platforms to promote a candidate, the unjustified revocation or selective granting of government assistance during the campaign period and the sudden surge in hiring of job orders or contract-based orders when engaged in partisan electoral activities. —VAL, GMA Integrated News

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