Printing of ballots starts today
BARRING unforeseen developments, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) will resume today, Jan. 27, printing the 73 million ballots for the national and local elections and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) parliamentary elections. The Comelec had already printed 6 million ballots before printing was stopped last Jan. 6 after the Supreme Court issued temporary restraining orders (TROs) for five candidates. Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia ordered the National Printing Office (NPO) to stop printing last July 14, but just as it was about to restart, four new TROs were issued by the Supreme Court. Printing was supposed to restart Friday but was again postponed after one of the senatorial aspirants, Francis Leo Marcos, who had filed a TRO, decided to withdraw his candidacy. With the withdrawal of Marcos, the Comelec needed two to three days to change the database and serialization of ballots and generate 1,667 ballot faces. Garcia said he had informed the high court, through Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo, that printing would again start on Monday. If there are more withdrawals after the printing has started, the Comelec will leave the names of the candidates who backed out on the ballot and declare any vote they garnered as stray. Garcia said the same policy applies to aspirants who were able to secure a TRO only to have the Supreme Court sustain the Comelec decision to delete their names from the ballot. He said there were 25 pending petitions from individual candidates and 22 from party-list groups. The issuance of a TRO is the prerogative of the Supreme Court, which the commission respects, Garcia said. The issuance of TROs at such a late stage has set back ballot printing by three weeks, he said. The Comelec will have to turn out 1.5 million ballots a day to ensure that the printing is finished two weeks before election day on May 12. Garcia said the ballots would be printed by the NPO's four printing presses and the presses from the technology provider Miru Systems of South Korea.
Tomas Kauer - Moderator 
BARRING unforeseen developments, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) will resume today, Jan. 27, printing the 73 million ballots for the national and local elections and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) parliamentary elections.
The Comelec had already printed 6 million ballots before printing was stopped last Jan. 6 after the Supreme Court issued temporary restraining orders (TROs) for five candidates.
Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia ordered the National Printing Office (NPO) to stop printing last July 14, but just as it was about to restart, four new TROs were issued by the Supreme Court.
Printing was supposed to restart Friday but was again postponed after one of the senatorial aspirants, Francis Leo Marcos, who had filed a TRO, decided to withdraw his candidacy.
With the withdrawal of Marcos, the Comelec needed two to three days to change the database and serialization of ballots and generate 1,667 ballot faces.
Garcia said he had informed the high court, through Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo, that printing would again start on Monday.
If there are more withdrawals after the printing has started, the Comelec will leave the names of the candidates who backed out on the ballot and declare any vote they garnered as stray.
Garcia said the same policy applies to aspirants who were able to secure a TRO only to have the Supreme Court sustain the Comelec decision to delete their names from the ballot.
He said there were 25 pending petitions from individual candidates and 22 from party-list groups.
The issuance of a TRO is the prerogative of the Supreme Court, which the commission respects, Garcia said.
The issuance of TROs at such a late stage has set back ballot printing by three weeks, he said.
The Comelec will have to turn out 1.5 million ballots a day to ensure that the printing is finished two weeks before election day on May 12.
Garcia said the ballots would be printed by the NPO's four printing presses and the presses from the technology provider Miru Systems of South Korea.
