With the Supreme Court's (SC) issuance of temporary restraining orders (TROs) that allowed the participation of two more candidates, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has opted again to reschedule the printing of ballots for the May 2025 elections.
In a message late Tuesday night, Jan. 21, Comelec spokesman Atty. John Rex Laudiangco confirmed the postponement of printing supposedly on Wednesday, Jan. 22, to amend the candidates' database; add their names in the election management system using the new add feature; generate new 1,667 ballot faces; have these ballot faces checked and verified; and serialize all the ballots prior to printing and production.
This came just after Comelec completed new 1,667 ballot face templates and serialization on Tuesday. This was for the TROs issued by the SC last week that halted Comelec from disqualifying three candidates in three towns in the May 2025 elections.
Before this, the poll body had already implemented contingency measures, including the immediate cessation of printing of ballots, inventory and disposal of 6 million printed ballots, and change/amendment to the candidates' database.
In an interview, Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia said that they would always comply with the High Court.
"The Comelec will always comply at this point with the Supreme Court directive. Supreme Court po natin yan at iginagalang natin at tayo rin mga ordinaryong mamamayan dapat tumatalima at sumusunod tayo sa Korte Suprema, kasi po part yan ng isang legal process at part yan ng rule of law (That is our Supreme Court, and we respect it. As ordinary citizens, we should also comply with and follow the Supreme Court, because that is part of a legal process and an essential aspect of the rule of law)," he said.
SC Spokesperson lawyer Camille Sue Mae L. Ting said TROs were issued in favor of Francis Leo Antonio Marcos, a senatorial aspirant who was declared a nuisance candidate, and Noel E. Rosal, whose certificate of candidacy for governor of Albay was canceled due to his dismissal by the Office of the Ombudsman which also ordered his perpetual disqualification to hold public office.
With the TROs which are immediately executory, Marcos and Rosal will be included in the official list of candidates.
Garcia said the delays would not affect the elections on May 12, 2025.
"Wala pong effect sa araw ng halalan basta dapat dalawang linggo bago mag-eleksyon, nadistribute na ng Comelec lahat ng election paraphernalia sa buong Pilipinas (There will be no effect on election day as long as the Comelec has distributed all election paraphernalia throughout the Philippines two weeks before the election)," he said.
"Bakit? Kasi meron po tayong final testing and sealing isang linggo bago mag eleksyon. Lahat ng makina na ipapadala sa buong bansa pati yung sampung balota bawat isang presinto ay susubukan itetest sa bawat presinto (Why? Because we have final testing and sealing one week before the election. All the machines that will be sent across the country, as well as the ten ballots for each precinct, will be tested at each precinct)," he added.
In a chance interview on Wednesday, Garcia said that they would proceed with the printing on Saturday, Jan. 22.
"Ipagpapatuloy namin ang printing ng balota ngayong darating na Sabado tatapusin namin lahat yung pagbabago ng database, at the same time yung mismong pag-seserialize ng mga balota kasama na rin po yung pagbabago ng ballot faces ng buong Pilipinas (We will continue printing the ballots this coming Saturday. We will finish all the changes to the database, and at the same time, we will serialize the ballots, including the updates to the ballot faces across the entire Philippines)," he said.
He added that they will do this for two to three days even overnight if they have to.
In relation to this, he mentioned that the Comelec en banc has approved the strategy that they would employ to speed up the printing of ballots. Aside from the printers from the National Printing Office (NPO) they would also use printers from Miru and in hopes of producing "1.5 production output of ballots in one day."
Meanwhile, Garcia disclosed on Wednesday that national and local elections (NLE) training is set to begin early next week until May.
"The training next week to be held in Diamond Hotel is for our Training of Trainers Phase I. There will be field officials arriving next week and the following week," he said in a Viber message.
"They're training is jam-packed because this is the last time we will brief them face to face. We will also train the Department of Science and Technology certifiers next week," he said in a mix of Filipino and English.