Makabayan wants probe into alleged 2025 poll irregularities

Makabayan bloc members file their candidacies in this file photo. Photo by Richard Reyes.

MANILA, Philippines — Lawmakers from the Makabayan bloc have filed a resolution asking the House of Representatives to conduct an investigation over alleged irregularities in the 2025 midterm elections — including claims of vote buying and red-tagging.

Under House Resolution (HR) No. 2291, ACT Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro, Gabriela party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas, and Kabataan party-list Rep. Raoul Manuel asked the chamber to do an investigation in aid of legislation regarding alleged rampant election issues as tallied by Kontra Daya organization and other watchdogs, like vote buying and machine malfunctions.

“Vote Report PH, in collaboration with Kontra Daya, tallied a total of 1,593 verified reports about election violations: 798 (50.09%) on issues with the Automated Counting Machines (ACMs), 200 (12.55%) on illegal campaigning, 144 (9.04%) on voter disenfranchisement, and 451 (28.31%) on other significant election violations including non-compliance by Board of Election Inspectors, red-tagging, election-related violence and harassment, vote-buying and -selling, tampering of ballots, disinformation, etc,” Makabayan said in HR No. 2291.

READ: 7 out of ‘DuterTEN’ want manual recount, ‘anomalies’ investigated

Furthermore, Makabayan said that there were other election-related issues, like the alleged use of government social aid programs to win votes in local elections.

“Beyond technical issues and voter disenfranchisement on election day itself, there have been other election-related issues before, during, and after the elections that have marred the integrity and credibility of the election results,” the group said.

`Electoral violations’

“Vote Report PH also tallied hundreds of reports regarding different electoral violations, including the red-tagging of progressive groups and candidates, misuse of government resources such as the Ayuda Para sa Kapos ang Kita Program for partisan gain, and widespread vote-buying, all of which may have unduly influenced the electoral process,” they claimed.

The Makabayan bloc is not alone in raising concerns about election-related issues.  Last May 17, several candidates under the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino (PDP), the party of former president Rodrigo Duterte, asked for a manual recount due to alleged anomalies in the elections.

Seven of the “DuterTEN” or the 10 candidates backed by Duterte and PDP also asked for a “full, independent, and transparent investigation” into alleged election irregularities such as the reported 17 million overvotes and a total of 35 million overvotes “which present grave concerns due to their magnitude, statistically improbable uniformity, and significant impact on the credibility of the electoral results.”

They also called for a forensic audit of the automated counting machines used in the midterm elections to ensure that the machines worked free from any technical disruptions.

During the election day, both Bayan Muna and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) also called for a manual counting system amid concerns of alleged discrepancies and inconsistencies with the automated election system (AES) implemented by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

READ: 2025 elections: Groups want manual vote count amid software update

Former Bayan Muna party-list lawmakers Neri Colmenares and Carlos Zarate on Monday afternoon said that the update to the software used — from the source code’s version 3.4 which was already reviewed and certified, to the version 3.5 update — may raise questions about the electoral process.

Comelec however clarified that rumors coming from an Isabela local candidate about issues brought by the update are mere misinformation and disinformation.

According to a statement from Comelec, the version 3.5 software used by the automated counting machines (ACMs) has been reviewed and verified.

Comelec noted that version 3.4 from the Local Source Code Review Report, when it was verified by third-party audits, was labeled as version 3.5 — which means the alleged two software are the same./mr