The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said on Wednesday, Feb. 16 that they brought up the issue of vote buying with providers of e-wallet systems and financial companies.

"I think it's pretty self-evident that this is a very easy mode of doing vote buying," Comelec Spokesperson James Jimenez said.

Jimenez has earlier mentioned that vote buying no longer happens on the actual day of the election but is already occurring even during the campaign period.

He said that they will seek guidance from financial companies on how they can actively monitor the digital services.

"Remember this is a very tricky area because we're talking about how people are spending their money. So basically what we'll have to do is we want to find out how we can use data or information to point us to potential offenders," he said.

"It's very important yung participation and cooperation nung mismong platform because since they run the system, they're the ones who are able to keep track of all these transactions," he added.

On the kind of transactions to be on the lookout for if they at some point would monitor, Jimenez said that they would look for suspicious patterns such as when a huge amount gets deposited into account and smaller amounts get distributed.

The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting has stated they have already been hearing a lot of issues on vote buying and said that it's very difficult for them alone to catch that or to report on the issue.

Its chair, Myla Villanueva believes thao it has to be a national effort, since they've heard a lot of big numbers being offered to people and families.