Senate Majority Leader Francis ‘Tol’ Tolentino praised the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for the quality of its preparations for the 2025 mid-term elections, including the first parliamentary polls in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

“I am glad to hear from Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia that the preparations for the national, local, and first BARMM parliamentary polls are proceeding at the right pace to achieve fair elections,” Tolentino said after Garcia updated the senator on the progress of the commission’s work.

The senator said he was satisfied with Comelec’s technical preparations, considering that the agency has to conduct two separate election systems which entail more difficult processing.

One system is for the first BARMM parliamentary elections, where 80 Bangsamoro parliament positions are included in the ballot; and the second is for the regular local and national elections, with candidates for senators, district representatives, local chief executives, and local legislative members presented to voters.

The Comelec chief said that candidates for BARMM parliament members could file their certificate of candidacy (COC) from November 4 to 9, while for the regular midterm elections, the COC filing was conducted from October 1 to 8.

Despite the Supreme Court’s exclusion of Sulu province from BARMM, Garcia revealed that the Comelec had prepared for elections in the province, as well as the remaining 73 districts of BARMM without problem.

Tolentino noted that the localities separated from BARMM need legislative action in order to distribute the parliament seats left vacant by the exclusion of Sulu from the autonomous region.

Meanwhile, Garcia said that the 63 barangays of North Cotabato which voted in the referendum to be constituted as eight municipalities under BARMM, need to be formed by Congress to create local positions for their local government units.

He said these eight municipalities currently do not belong to any province, so the voters there can only vote for senators, party-list representatives, and parliament members, but not for governor, vice governor, or Sangguniang Panlalawigan members – unless a law is passed to create a province covering the said municipalities.

On the question of the credibility of the automation contractor, of which one of the three Filipino joint venture partners, St. Timothy Construction Corp., fielded one of its officials as a candidate in the local elections in Pasig City, Garcia said that the firm had already withdrawn from the joint venture with South Korean firm Miru, which won the automation contract for the 2025 midterm elections.

He noted that the Comelec saw a conflict of interest in St. Timothy Construction Corp. and asked the firm’s representative to choose between politics and business; if not, the COC of their candidate would be canceled.

Garcia added that the remaining two Filipino joint venture partners had committed and submitted financial guaranty to provide the financial participation that St. Timothy Construction Corp. had left behind.

He further stated that 67,000 of the 110,000 vote counting machines, or 57 percent of the number needed for the May 12, 2025 midterm elections, had already been delivered to Comelec's warehouse in Biñan, Laguna.

Garcia also updated Tolentino on the conduct of the source code review that started on Monday (Oct. 14), where top-notch tech experts participated. The source code review is a systemic examination to identify possible anomalies in the automated machines’ software.

Finally, the Comelec chair thanked the senator for pushing for internet voting for overseas Filipino workers (OFW) who are to vote one month before the nationwide local and national elections.

Garcia said that the information drive for the internet voting system, which targets the participation of some 1.5 million registered Filipino voters abroad, had already been rolled out in August.