Ballot reprinting reset again due to Francis Leo Marcos withdrawal

Metro Manila, Philippines – The reprinting of ballots for the May midterm polls has been postponed again after senatorial aspirant Francis Leo Marcos withdrew from the race.

Marcos had secured a temporary restraining order (TRO) from the Supreme Court against his disqualification after the Commission on Elections declared him a nuisance candidate.

This TRO, along with a similar order for Albay gubernatorial candidate Noel Rosal’s disqualification, prompted the Comelec to reschedule the reprinting from Wednesday, Jan. 22 to Friday, Jan. 24. However, the process has now been delayed again due to Marcos' withdrawal on Thursday afternoon.

“Dahil dito sa pagwi-withdraw niya, hihingi muli kami ng mga dalawa hanggang tatlong araw. Sapagkat muli naming babaguhin yung database ng Comelec. At the same time, isi-serialize muli namin ang mga balota. At the same time, yung mga ballot faces muli naming babaguhin,” Comelec Chairman George Garcia told reporters.

[Translation: Because of his withdrawal, we will again request two to three more days. We will need to update the Comelec database, reserialize the ballots, and at the same time, change the ballot faces again.]

The Comelec also postponed the uploading of new ballot faces, originally scheduled for Thursday evening.

Garcia urged aspirants planning to withdraw their candidacies to do so by noon on Friday to allow time for updating the ballots and meet the new printing target of Monday, Jan. 27.

If an aspirant withdraws while the ballots are already being printed, Garcia said they would not halt the printing. The name would remain on the ballot, but votes cast for that candidate would not be counted.

The poll body began printing ballots on Jan. 6, but this was halted after the Supreme Court issued TROs against the disqualification of senatorial aspirant Subair Guinthum Mustapha and four local candidates, including former Caloocan City Rep. Edgar Erice.

Some six million ballots, costing around P132 million, were wasted, as the poll body needed to regenerate, reserialize, and reprint them. Reprinting was initially scheduled for Jan. 20, then moved to Jan. 22, but was delayed again due to TROs favoring Marcos and Rosal.

Garcia said he would write to the Supreme Court to inform the justices of the intent to resume printing on Monday, hoping there would be no further TROs.