Two lawyers are eyeing the impeachment of Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Erwin Garcia and six sitting commissioners of the poll body before the House of Representatives.

Complainants Eldrige Marvin Aceron, founding partner of Aceron & Attorneys and Founder of the Aceron Public Interest and Legal Association (APILA); and Sikini Labastilla, a co-founder of Project Damaskus Lawyers, made the announcement on Holy Monday, March 30.

They showed the media a copy of an impeachment complaint against the respondents, which they intend to formally file at the House in Batasan, Quezon City once they get at least one congressman to back or endorse it.

The respondents in the complaint are Comelec Chairman Garcia and Commissioners Nelson Celis. Ernesto Ferdinand Maceda Jr., Aimee Ferolino-Ampoloquio, Rey Bulay, Maria Norina Tangaro-Casingal, and Noli Pipo.

The complaint charges the rspondents with culpable violation of Republic Act (RA) No. 8436 (the Automated Election System Law), betrayal of public trust, and other high crimes arising from a documented pattern of institutional misconduct across two consecutive election cycles.

In seeking to unseat the respondents, the complainants says they are of the firm belief that the Comelec is "no longer the honorable institution it used to be".

“The Comelec was once led by Haydee Yorac, who made even warlords follow the election gun ban; By Hilario Davide Jr., who presided over the first free elections after the Marcos dictatorship and later administered the oath at EDSA; By Regalado Maambong, Constitutional Commissioner, who helped frame the very provisions under which this complaint is filed and championed the automation law whose mandatory source code review Garcia violated,” Labastilla said.

“Against that standard, this Commission has been captured. The complaint invokes Apolinario Mabini’s April 1898 challenge to Filipino revolutionaries: we must march along the narrow road of honor and virtue, because it is only along this path that we will find true freedom. Garcia’s Comelec took the wide and easy road. This complaint takes the narrow one,” reckoned Aceron.

The complaint enumerates four allegations or articles of impeachment.

Article I charges the respondents with culpable violation of RA No. 8436 for deploying software version 3.5.0 in all 110,000 automated counting machines (ACMs) used in the May 12, 2025 elections — a version that was not the source code subjected to the mandatory source code review.

The complainants claimed that Garcia admitted this publicly on July 14, 2025 by saying, “Walang walang wala po. Talagang 3.5.0 version tayo (There are really none [using 3.4.0]. We really only used the 3.5.0 version).”

On the other hand, article II charges the respondents with betrayal of public trust for installing and operating an unauthorized intermediary server designated “Data Center 3” through which all election results in the May 12, 2025 elections were routed before reaching the five accredited transparency servers.

This supposedly left the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) without results for over two hours after polls closed. Garcia admitted the delay the following day.

Meanwhile, article III charges respondent Garcia with betrayal of public trust for concealing, in the May 9, 2022 elections, the deployment of a single private IP address — 192.168.0.2 — for 20,300 vote-counting machine modems, admitted only fourteen months after the election.

The complainants said that when citizen investigators filed a petition before the Supreme Court (SC) to preserve the telco transmission logs that would have independently verified the source of over 20 million first-hour votes, those logs were allowed to expire and were destroyed. Garcia later publicly promised a manual recount of 2022 ballots, the commission en banc formally resolved to conduct it, and the commission then did nothing.

The SC, in G.R. No. 273136 (Aug. 20, 2024), expressly found the Comelec guilty of official inaction for violating its own procedural rules.

Finally, article IV charges the respondents with betrayal of public trust for the systematic and selective enforcement of campaign finance laws that consistently favored senators allied with the appointing administration — clearing Senator Francis "Chiz" Escudero (P30-million contractor donation) and Senator Rodante Marcoleta (P75 million undisclosed donations) despite the commission’s own Political Finance and Affairs Department finding non-compliance with the law in both cases.

Aceron says the charges are being pursued now because of major upcoming events. “Two of the seven respondents — Commissioners Ferolino and Bulay — will complete their terms on February 2, 2027. Thus, the accountability window for their participation in the 2022 transmission anomaly is closing," he said.

"Garcia will supervise the 2028 elections with the same undisclosed transmission architecture, the same pattern of evidence concealment, and the same selective enforcement record that are the subject of this complaint. That cannot happen without a formal legal record demanding accountability,” he further said.