Senate Majority Leader Francis “Tol” Tolentino
MANILA, Philippines — Seven months before the 2025 midterm elections, Senate Majority Leader Francis “Tol” Tolentino praised the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for its pre-elections performance, including preparations for the first parliamentary elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
“I am glad to hear from Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia that the developments in preparation for the national, local, and the first BARMM parliamentary elections are in the right pacing to achieve fair elections,” Tolentino commented after Garcia appraised him on the issues confronting the Comelec regarding the midterm and parliamentary elections.
The senator said he was satisfied with Comelec’s preparation because, with seven months to go, the technical preparations are in place even though the agency has to deal with two separate election systems and more difficult processing.
READ: Comelec: Initial list of poll bets out by end-October
One of the systems is for the first BARMM parliamentary elections, where 80 Bangsamoro parliament members are included in the ballot, and the other system is for regular local and national elections with candidates for senators, district representatives, local chief executives, and local legislative members presented for elections.
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The Comelec chief said that candidates for BARMM parliament members may file their certificate of candidacy (COC) from Nov. 4 to 9, while for the regular midterm elections, the COC filing was done from Oct. 1 to 8.
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He revealed that despite the Supreme Court’s exclusion of Sulu province from the BARMM, the Comelec had prepared for elections in the province and the remaining 73 districts of BARMM without problem.
READ: Comelec pushing for ‘zero failure’ in BARMM 2025 polls
Tolentino said the localities separated from BARMM need legislative action and an act of parliament from BARMM to distribute the seats in the parliament left vacant by the highest court’s decision to exclude the province from the autonomous region.
Garcia said that 63 barangays of North Cotabato, which voted in the referendum to be constituted as eight municipalities of BARMM, had to be formed by Congress to create local positions of the local government unit.
He said these eight municipalities do not belong to a 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, without a law creating the province.
On the question of the credibility of the automation contractor, of which one of the three Filipino joint venture partners, St. Timothy Construction Corp., fielding its candidate in the local elections in Pasig City, Garcia said 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 said that 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 the St. Timothy Construction Corp. had left behind, which the company was involved with in the automation contract.
He said that 67,000 of the 110,000 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), with top-notch tech experts participating, which is the systemic examination to identify anomalies in the automated machines’ software.
He then thanked the senator for pushing for internet voting for overseas Filipino workers (OFW) who are to vote one month before nationwide local and national elections.
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Garcia said the internet voting system, targeting some 1.5 million OFWs who were taught the mechanics of voting online, had already been rolled out in August.
