Comelec eyes to complete funding before May 2025 polls

A Commission on Elections (Comelec) official said Thursday they hope to complete the necessary budgetary requirements before the holding of the May 2025 elections. (Arianne Lacanilao/PCI Photo)

MANILA – A Commission on Elections (Comelec) official said Thursday they hope to complete the necessary budgetary requirements before the holding of the May 2025 elections.

This came after the poll body’s 2024 proposed budget was slashed from PHP43.71 billion to PHP27.10 billion, under the proposed PHP5.678-trillion 2024 National Expenditure Program (NEP) submitted by the Department of Budget and Management to the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

“While this 2024 budget figure may not cover the total budgetary requirements for the May 2025 National and Local Elections (NLE), we are expecting that the remainder of the said NLE fund requirements will be budgeted for FY 2025 and released in time for the last phase of preparations, which is on the 1st quarter of 2025 itself, and this without further delay,” Comelec spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco said in a Viber message to reporters.

Laudiangco said given the reduction of its 2024 proposed budget, the Comelec may procure on a “lot basis,” particularly for the components of its target automated election system (AES), depending on the availability of fund allotment.

“At any rate, while most of the components thereof are bundled, the same is clustered naman po, and we could proceed to procure such on a lot basis, with the completion of payments being in time for the 2025 budgeting and release,” he said.

Laudiangco told the Philippine News Agency (PNA) that the automated counting machines (ACMs) and consumables, including secure digital cards, ballot paper, marking pens, modem, external battery and iButton if still necessary, would constitute one lot.

He said other lots include transmission services, Internet voting services and international end-to-end certification.

“And as stated by the Comelec Chairman (George Erwin Garcia) po, instead of adding support staff for the benefit of the electoral boards, we will have to reduce. Another will be to cluster a greater number of voters, perhaps maximizing to a thousand per clustered precinct, instead of just 800,” Laudiangco said.

He said training and Department of Science and Technology certification may also be delayed to 2025.

“We can only delay the procurement for so much under the procurement short of award allowed under the rules. But what is imperative here is for the Comelec to receive the funding required for the further modernization of the elections in 2025,” he added.

Garcia said the poll body may resort to reducing support staff.

“Kailangan po kami magtanggal ng ilang items para makatipid. Tulad halimbawa po ng support staff ng bawat presinto o pagpapadami ng botante bawat presinto para hindi ganung kadami ang machines na rentahan ng Comelec kasama ang iba pang collaterals (We need to remove some items to save. For example, [the reduction] of support staff per precinct or increasing the voters in each precinct so the Comelec will not have to rent that many machines and other collaterals),” he said.

Comelec earlier disclosed targets to replace the 97,000 vote counting machines with ACMs through its proposed Fully Automated System with Transparency, Audit and Count (FASTrAC) for the 2025 polls.