SC orders Comelec, DFA to answer petition vs vote-count automation

MANILA, Philippines — The Supreme Court (SC) has directed the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to comment on a petition challenging the automated counting of votes at the precinct level in the 2025 polls.

In a resolution dated April 15 but made public only on Tuesday, May 5, the SC en banc said the Comelec and DFA have 10 days to respond to the motion to intervene filed by two groups in support of the original petition for prohibition and mandamus filed by lawyer Israelito Torreon.

The groups that filed a motion in support of Torreon’s petition were the National People’s Initiative Council Committee and God’s People’s Initiative.

Torreon, a Mindanao-based lawyer and a regional council officer of Partido Demokratiko Pilipino (PDP) in Davao, welcomed the resolution in a Facebook post, saying: “Hoping there’s a decision on this before the 2028 polls.”

READ: PDP-Laban calls for manual recount of 2025 Senate race votes

Torreon filed the petition on April 3, 2025, more than a month before the May 12 midterm elections, where he represented losing senatorial candidates under the PDP slate in a series of petitions that began at the Comelec to contest the automated processing of votes.

It also contested the remote or online voting system for Filipinos abroad, arguing that the overseas voters had “no means at all” to verify whether their votes were counted. 

Reacting to the SC’s action on the petition, Comelec Chair George Garcia said the poll body would comply with the directive.

“Despite the limited resources, the pilot online voting of 2025 was very successful. It afforded our compatriots abroad a mode of voting without going to our embassies and consulates,” he said in a statement to reporters. 

“The random manual audit conducted for overseas voting revealed a 100% accuracy. As to the request for a manual recount of the votes for Senators, it is doubtful if the same can be done under the present remedy sought by the petitioners,” he added.

Torreon also led the filing in August last year of another petition before the Senate, urging the upper chamber’s Blue Ribbon Committee to immediately look into alleged irregularities in online voting and the supposed “questionable” procurement activities of the Comelec.

The mishaps, he earlier noted, revealed “vulnerabilities and statutory gaps” in the country’s automated polling system. /mcm