2025 elections: What’s old, new
Graphics by: Samuel Yap / INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines—Filipinos will be electing a new set of leaders in less than five months.
With the ball on the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) court, here’s what we will keep tabs on in the 2025 national and local elections and the first one for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Rizal, Quezon) has the highest registered voters according to the Commission on Elections. Graphics by: Samuel Yap / INQUIRER.net
There are 68,618,667 registered voters for next year’s elections with 33,690,884 male voters and 34,927,783 female voters.
Among the regions, Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Rizal, Quezon) has the highest number of registered voters—9,764,170.
Central Luzon followed with 7,712,535 voters, and the National Capital Region with 7,562,858 voters.
READ: Primer: What to know about the 2025 Philippine elections
A total of 18,271 national and local positions are being contested while 65 of the Bangsamoro Parliament’s 73 seats are up for grabs.
With new counting machines, election guidelines, filing of certificates of candidacies, and notable aspirants, Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia said that next year’s elections will set a parameter for 2028 when the nation elects a new president and vice president.
Automated counting machines
The Comelec will be using a total of 110,620 automated counting machines (ACMs) for the 2025 elections. These are subjected to hardware acceptance tests to ensure that they work properly.
READ: Comelec: No manual uploading of SD cards for 2025 polls
Pro V & V, an international certifying body, and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) will conduct simultaneous certification tests on the machines.
The new ACM features a 14-inch touch screen and other components, like headphones, for persons with disabilities. According to the Comelec, there will be no manual uploading of Secure Digital or SD cards to transmit results.
Lease of the ACMs is part of the P17.99 billion contract signed by Comelec and Miru Systems of South Korea, which replaced Smartmatic as automated elections systems provider for the 2025 elections.
The contract also provides for election management systems, consolidation and canvassing systems, ballot printing, ballot boxes, and other peripherals.
The awarding of the contract to Miru Systems had been met with concern from lawmakers and experts, who cited cases of technological glitches in the South Korean firm’s election deployments in other countries.
Also, former Caloocan City Rep. Edgar Erice asked the Supreme Court (SC) to nullify the contract with Miru citing violations of Republic Act No. 7369, or the Automated Elections Act.
The high court previously ruled that Comelec “committed grave abuse of discretion” in disqualifying Smartmatic before it submitted any bid requirements. However, SC spokesperson lawyer Camille Ting clarified that the SC ruling does not nullify the contract of Miru and Comelec.
Publication of COCs, CONAs
For the first time in its history, the Comelec published the certificates of candidacies (COCs) of aspirants for
national and local posts and the certificates of nomination and acceptance (CONAs) of party-list groups.
According to Garcia, this landmark move was done to prevent another case similar to Alice Guo’s. The dismissed Bamban, Tarlac mayor sought and won a mayoral seat despite submitting alleged false information about her identity in her COC in the 2022 local elections.
READ: Comelec wants stricter rules on COC filing to avoid another Guo case
Garcia previously urged voters to check COCs and CONAs published in Comelec’s website for material misrepresentation.
The poll body filed a material misrepresentation case against Guo for violating the Omnibus Election Code.
New election guidelines
In a bid to regulate social media posts of candidates to prevent the spread of disinformation and misinformation, the Comelec introduced guidelines for digital election campaigns. These cover the use of social media platforms, artificial intelligence, and the use of the internet for digital campaign.
Candidates, political parties, and party-list groups were required to register their social media platforms to comply with the new guidelines and avoid takedown of content on their accounts.
The guidelines were recently amended to remove the provision requiring private accounts to uphold freedom of speech and expression, according to the Comelec.
As the Comelec wrapped up voter registration on December 13, a total of 13,723 aspirants registered their social media accounts. Of these, 70 belonged to senatorial aspirants, while 13,416 were local candidates. A total of 237 party-list groups, organizations, and coalitions registered.
The Comelec also barred substitution of candidates due to withdrawal after the period of filing COCs. However, substitution after the deadline was still allowed if the original aspirant died or was disqualified.
READ: Comelec releases list of party-list groups’ nominees for 2025 polls
Party-list groups were also required to submit 10 nominees to represent them. Garcia said that this was a new feature of Republic Act 7941 or the Party-list System Act.
First Bangsamoro Parliamentary elections
The first BARMM Parliamentary elections will be held on May 12, 2025, alongside the national and local elections. This marks the end of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), or BARMM’s temporary regional government.
The filing of COC for the parliamentary elections was rescheduled from October 1-8 to November 4-9 following a Supreme Court ruling excluding Sulu province from the autonomie region, which reduced the original parliamentary seats from 80 to 73.
READ: What to know about first-ever Bangsamoro Parliament elections
Sulu’s exclusion from the region has led the BTA to file a bill calling on Congress to postpone the first BARMM Parliamentary elections. The House of Representatives recently passed on third and final reading the bill seeking to postpone the elections to the second Monday of May 2026.
The Comelec maintained that it will continue preparations for the parliamentary elections and they are “ready” should Congress decide to postpone it.
Notable poll aspirants
Many notable and familiar faces who will run in the 2025 elections are reelectionists and those who are returning to their previous posts.
READ: Marcos bares 12 admin senatorial bets for 2025 polls
The seven senatorial reelectionists are Imee Marcos, Francis Tolentino, Bong Go, Bato dela Rosa, Bong Revilla, Pia Cayetano, and Lito Lapid. Familiar reelectionists for mayor are Quezon City’s Joy Belmonte, Pasig City’s Vico Sotto, Taguig City’s Lani Cayetano, and Manila City’s Honey Lacuna.
Former senators Bam Aquino, Kiko Pangilinan, Ping Lacson, Tito Sotto, and Manny Pacquiao are seeking a Senate comeback. Labor leaders Leody de Guzman and Luke Espiritu also filed their intent to run for senator.
The petition to disqualify preacher Apollo Quiboloy, leader of the group Kingdom of Jesus Christ, as candidate for senator was recently dismissed by the Comelec First Division, citing insufficient grounds to cancel his COC and declare him as a nuisance candidate.
Quiboloy, who is currently detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center, is facing charges of qualified human trafficking, a nonbailable offense, and child abuse.
Former vice president Leni Robredo is gunning for a mayoral seat in Naga City, which her late husband Jesse Robredo, held for six terms. She previously said that she set aside the possibility of running for senator as her “skill set is better suited for the mayor’s office than the Senate.”
On the other hand the Comelec recently ruled on petitions filed against House of Representatives aspirants Edgar Erice and Marcelino Teodoro.
Comelec First Division granted the petition of Aquilino Pimentel III’s to cancel Teodoro’s COC over material misrepresentation in his address. The Comelec Second Division granted the disqualification petition by Raymond Salipot against Erice due to the propagation of false information “to disrupt the electoral process.”
READ: Comelec 1st division cancels Teodoro’s candidacy for House seat
