Baguio generally peaceful in Eleksyon 2025, says Comelec

BAGUIO CITY — Voting in this city for the Philippine elections 2025 has been generally peaceful as of Monday afternoon, except for some minor incidents that have already been addressed, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said hours before the polls closed.

According to Comelec Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) regional director Atty. Julius Torres, precincts in the city promptly opened, with a lot of voters availing of the early voting hours for senior citizens, persons with disabilities (PWDs), and pregnant women that started at 5 a.m. Regular voting started at 7 a.m.

“So far, okay pa naman, generally peaceful. Overall, timely naman ‘yung pagka-deploy natin ng mga election paraphernalia natin, nag-open naman lahat ng polling centers natin, at marami rin ang nag-avail ng early voting hours,” he told GMA News Online in an interview.

“‘Yun lang, may mga complaints na of course, kailangan siguro konting tiyaga, kasi nga ang mga nauna sa’yo ay mga senior citizen, medyo mahaba ang pila tumatagal, but at least nakita nila na may advantage pa rin ang early voting,” he added.

(So far, it’s still okay, generally peaceful. Overall, we deployed the election paraphernalia timely, all our polling centers opened, and a lot availed of early voting hours.

It’s just that there were complaints that of course, maybe they need some patience, because they came after senior citizens so the lines were quite long and took time, but at least they saw that early voting had its advantages.)

Torres said there have also been incidents of the automated counting machines (ACMs) having malfunctions, but these have mostly been immediately resolved, with at least three of them replaced with contingency units.

“Mostly kasing problem is scanner. Mukhang nasa ink ata, nagkakaproblema sa ink, so ina-advise-an nalang natin ‘yung mga election officers natin na i-remind ang ating mga EBs (Electoral Boards) na as much as possible sana tuyo, tuyong tuyo ‘yung ink bago nila ipasok para hindi magkaroon ng smudge sa scanner,” he said.

(Most of the problems were in the scanners. It seems as though it was with the ink; there were problems with the ink, so we advised our election officers to remind the electoral boards that as much as possible, [the ballots should be] really dry before they are entered to prevent smudges in the scanner.)

Comelec data show that there are 166,416 registered voters in Baguio, with 60 polling centers in the city. This is lower than the 168,218 registered voters during the presidential elections in 2022, when the voter turnout was 82.90%.

“Ang trend is mas mababa ‘pag hindi presidential ang elections, although since naman nag-automated elections tayo, consistent naman nasa low 80s ‘yung ating turnout,” Torres said.

“‘Yung mga presidential elections usually mas mataas talaga as compared sa national elections na hanggang senators lang, so probably it would still be the same. Parang ngayon, mas may interes ‘yung ating mga botante ‘pag presidential elections,” he added.

(The trend is that [voter turnout] is lower if it is not a presidential election, although since we automated elections, turnout has consistently been in the low 80s.

Presidential elections usually have a really higher turnout compared with national elections that are only up to senators, so probably it would still be the same. Like now, voters have more interest in presidential elections.)

Biggest voting center

Baguio’s largest voting center, Rizal Elementary School with 11,351 voters, said that while there was a rush of voters during the early hours of Monday, this has since died down and operations are going smoothly.

“Kaninang umaga dinumog lang talaga kami ng mga voters pero as the time goes, umuuwi naman sila na peaceful naman and we observed that there are many senior citizens who arrived in the first three hours,” the schools principal Remedios Quiño said in a separate interview.

(This morning we saw a rush of voters but as the time went by, they went home peacefully, and we observed that there were many senior citizens who arrived in the first three hours.)

Rizal Elementary School is the voting center of residents of seven barangays in Baguio — Mines View, St. Joseph, Lualhati, Outlook, Pucsusan, Gibraltar, and Pacdal.

Quiño said there have been only minor incidents, with one voter complaining that the name of a candidate he did not vote for came out in the receipt, and another incident of a political party reporting that they were being impersonated by an individual, which will be reported to the Comelec.

“I don’t see any issues anymore because everything is doing good already,” she said. –NB, GMA Integrated News

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