The Commission on Election (Comelec) on Saturday, March 15, completed the printing of all the official ballots for the upcoming elections.

Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia announced that a total of 68,542,564 ballots have been printed—and it was done within the promised period.

Garcia said the poll body, through its partnership with Miru systems and the National Printing Office (NPO), managed to meet the deadline after increasing the number of its printers and its printing staff.

The printing process was finished in less than two months after officially starting it on Jan. 27.

However, Garcia clarified that the printed ballots were only for voters in Luzon and Visayas.

"'Di tayo nag-emprenta ng balota para sa Bangsamoro (Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao) sapagkat at that time [may] posibilidad na ang eleksyon sa Bangsamoro ay hindi matuloy (We did not print ballots for the Bangsamoro because there were possibilities raised before that its elections would be postponed)," he said.

On Feb. 21, President Marcos signed a law postponing the first Bangsamoro elections from May 12 to Oct. 13, 2025.

Meanwhile, Garcia said the poll body is expected to finish its verification process for printed ballots by April 20, 2025.

“Sa kasalukuyan, may almost 50 percent na tayong naveverify na mga balota (As of now, we've already verified around 50 percent of the total ballots),” he said.

“Hindi po ganoon kadali ang pag verify ng mga balota…sapagkat hindi mo naman minamadali ang pag-veverify sa mata at pagve-verify sa pamamagitan ng makina (It's not easy to verify ballots because you have to do it manually and via machines),” he added.

Garcia said the Comelec is targeting to verify around 1.3 million ballots per day.

The target date for the complete printing of voters information sheets, on the other hand, is on March 25.

Comelec is expecting to increase the number of voters information sheets being printed per day because there are more printing machines that are available now.

He said the poll body is doing its best to ensure that it delivers what it has to deliver “on time".

Other equipment

Garcia also bared that Comelec already shipped out the batteries that will be used for voting machines to its regional hubs.

“Para mas madali ang paminigay nito sa iba't ibang municipalities at cities ng bawat bansa (We do it to expedite the distribution to different municipalities and cities across the country)” he said.

“So ang kulang na lang sa mga hindi pa nadedeploy, ang mga balota. Yung mga makina ay iniisa isa na rin natin na i-deploy…at sywmpre kasama na rin po.. yung mga Starlink at mga simcard para sa transmission operations (What we still have to deploy are the ballots, the voting machines, and the Starlink and sim cards for transmission operations),” he added.

He said the inspection team has also started checking which areas will either be needing a Starlink or a telecommunication network connection.

“Dahil hindi lahat ng lugar sa ating bansa ay may signal. Gagamit tayo ng more or less 7,000 na more or less na Starlink na ididistribute natin sa buong bansa (Because not all parts of the country have signal, we need to use more or less 7,000 Starlink networks to be used across the country),” he added.