Complaint filed vs Comelec chief over system interference in May polls

Commission on Elections chief George Erwin Garcia — Photo by Marianne Bermudez

MANILA, Philippines — Groups composed of church leaders and retired military personnel filed a complaint before the National Bureau of Investigation on Thursday against Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair George Erwin Garcia for supposed system interference during the May midterm polls.

For his part, Garcia said in an ambush interview that the Comelec had already answered the issues that were raised in the complaint, but said the poll body was ready to face any investigation.

In a 15-page document, the complainants alleged that the source code installed in the automated counting machine (ACMs) used during the elections was not the same as the code that was reviewed in the final Automated Election System (AES) Source Code Review report.

The complainants were composed of members of the groups Alayansa ng Nagkakaisang Mamamayan and the Church Leaders Council for National Transformation.

They said based on the final AES report issued on April 30, the ACMs were installed with software version 3.4.0. However, during the final testing and sealing of the ACMs later on May 6, software version 3.5.0 was installed in the machines instead.

“No other entity other than the commission has access to the ACMs or the source code for the May 12, 2025 National and Local Elections. Therefore, it could only be the commission that can commit the switching of the software,” the complaint said.

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Meanwhile, Garcia clarified that software version 3.5.0 was the code used in the ACMs, and argued the Comelec had already received a certification from the Technical Evaluation Committee regarding the system and hardware that were used.

The complainants also alleged that the Comelec installed an “intermediary server” called Data Center 3, which received, consolidated and processed election results from precincts before it could be received by the media and election watchdogs.

They said Data Center 3 was created to house the transparency servers used by the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel), and the media, as well as the majority and minority servers.

“As a result of the unauthorized and illegal code switching and the installation of Data Center 3, only the Central Server of the Commission received transmissions from the ACMs upon the closing of the polling precincts,” the complainants said.

While Garcia said that Data Center 3 does house the said servers, he argued that there is no such “intermediary server.” He added that the PPCRV, as well as the minority and majority parties, have their own program that can “clean” the votes to show its “exact” number.

“There are already a lot of agencies, organizations, coalitions and many groups who said that the elections were organized and can be trusted, such as the European Union, Anfrel (Asian Network for Free Elections) and our PPCRV, 99.999009 percent accuracy is what they’re saying,” Garcia said.

For the complainants, the “unauthorized substitution of the certified software version 3.4.0 with version 3.5.0, as well as the installation of an intermediary server called Data Center 3” all constitute “illegal acts” in violation of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.

Switching the source code “without appropriate disclosure or authority” also constituted a violation of Republic Act No. 9363 or the Election Automation Law, they said.

They argued that Garcia should be guilty of 55 million counts of system interference, which is the number of votes that were “unlawfully” processed through the alleged intermediary server, as well as an additional 110,000 counts for the ACMs whose codes were supposedly switched. /das