Comelec deputizes National Printing Office to fast track ballot printing

COMELEC PRINTING MACHINES / OCTOBER 26, 2024 Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman George Garcia and Comelec Commissioner Ernesto Maceda Jr. during the ceremonial turnover of the printing machines and printing of test ballots for the 2025 National and Local Elections at the NPO in Quezon City on Saturday, October 26, 2024. INQUIRER PHOTO / NINO JESUS ORBETA

MANILA, Philippines — In an unprecedented move, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) deputized the National Printing Office in its bid to fast track the reprinting of ballots for midterm polls, poll body chief George Erwin Garcia said on Monday.

The NPO is mandated to continue to provide printing services to government agencies like Comelec and is the only agency—apart from the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas—authorized to print election ballots.

“For the first time, we have deputized the NPO,” Garcia said in an interview at Palacio del Gobernador during the sidelines of the “trusted build” process of the automated counting machines conducted at Palacio del Gobernador.

“We’re going to release the resolution today deputizing the NPO in order to expedite everything.”

Because of this, the Comelec could mobilize the employees and officers of NPO “as if they are employees of Comelec,” according to Garcia.

Garcia said this move is in line with Comelec’s goal to print 1.5 million ballots daily, about a third of its initial goal of printing one million ballots.

The Comelec chief  also said the poll body will resume the reprinting of ballots on Wednesday, Jan. 22 “at all costs”.

As a prerequisite for the ballot printing, the Comelec conducted a “trusted build” to allow the adding of new candidates to the ballots in the automated election management system.

This trusted build — which refers to the process of assembling the overall program that will govern the entire automated election management system — is necessary for Comelec to comply with the Supreme Court (SC) decision which ordered the poll body to add the name of an erstwhile nuisance candidate and other disqualified local aspirants to the midterm poll ballots.

READ: Comelec eyes earlier COC filing for more time to appeal cases

On Jan. 14, the SC blocked Comelec’s move to declare Senate hopeful Subair Guinthum Mustapha as a nuisance candidate.

READ: Group urges Comelec to return to manual voting to avoid ballot wastage

Mustapha was then to be included in the list of senatorial candidates despite the commencement of the printing of the ballot last Jan. 6 which did not bear his name.

Because of this, the Comelec discarded six million ballots for the upcoming midterm polls without Mustapha’s name, causing a P132 million financial loss to the Comelec.

READ: Comelec to recycle unusable ballot papers for 2025 polls

After the trusted build, the Comelec will produce new ballot faces on Tuesday which contain the names of Mustapha and other local aspirants favored by the SC.

READ: SC order on nuisance bet affects Sotto, Quiboloy’s ballot numbers

Only when these two processes—the trusted build and production of ballot faces—were conducted could the Comelec commence the printing of new ballots.