THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) expects half a million candidates to run in the simultaneous midterm and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) parliamentary elections next year.
Comelec Chairman George Garcia said Sunday that over 18,000 national and local posts will be at stake during the twin elections on May 12.
“With 18,271 positions to be filled up, easily we can have 500,000 aspirants in the 2025 national and local elections and Bangsamoro Parliamentary elections,” he said in a Viber message to reporters.
The national positions at stake are 12 Senate seats, 63 for party-lists and 254 for congressional district representatives.
There will be 82 posts for governors and vice governors and 792 for provincial board members.
At the municipal level, the available positions are 1,493 each for mayors and vice mayors and 11,948 seats for councilors.
For the BARMM polls, 80 seats will be available in the parliament, comprised of 40 party representatives, 32 district representatives, and eight sectoral representatives.
The filing of certificates of candidacy (COCs) will be from October 1 to 8.
Comelec set the deadline for requesting a transfer of venue for the filing of COC on September 20.
The Election Officer, Provincial Election Supervisor or the Regional Election Director of the National Capital Region, as receiving officers of COCs, may file the request on any of the following grounds: security concerns of Comelec employees and workers; insufficient or limited office space; and such other grounds as may be approved by the Commission.
Garcia also said the printing of ballots for the 2025 election would start on the second week of December instead of the usual first month of the election year.
The National Printing Office (NPO) would print 73 million ballots, corresponding to the one ballot per voter ratio.
Garcia said the printing of the 3 million ballots for BARMM will be separate because the election in that region is not covered by the P17.9 billion contract awarded to Miru Systems.
Comelec will lease 110,000 automated counting machines and other peripheral services from Miru.
Included in the contract are the provisions for 104,345 ballot boxes, 2,200 pieces of server/laptop and printer, pens and ballot printing, ballot paper for 73,881,894 and ballot verification.
Last week, Miru Systems also signed a memorandum of agreement with Comelec and the NPO for printing the 73 million ballots.
Miru will lend the NPO state-of-the-art printing machines, each of which can turn out one million ballots per day.
Garcia said each machine would print only 500,000 ballots or a total of 1 million a day to ensure the quality of the ballots.
“We should not rush it. That is why we are starting the printing early to maintain a high standard of quality control on the ballots to be printed,” he said.
Each ballot is “precinct specific,” meaning it cannot be used in another precinct or fed into another counting machine.
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