MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday categorically denied allegations of “dagdag-bawas” (vote padding and shaving) in the partial and unofficial results of the 2025 senatorial elections.
Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia addressed the issue during a press conference at the Manila Hotel Tent City, following reports that up to five million votes had allegedly been subtracted from some candidates’ totals early Tuesday morning.
Garcia clarified that the confusion stemmed from the premature release of unprocessed election data by some media outlets. He explained that the raw data received from the Comelec data server had not been “cleansed” before being published.
“Ang makikita n’yo po sa Comelec real-time, hindi siya late ang result ng mga election returns sa bawat presinto. Yung mga lumalabas na may sumatutal, may ranking ng mga kandidato, hindi po sa amin galing yun. Yun pong sa NAMFREL, PPCRV, media, minority, majority, hindi siya real-time kaagad kasi kinakailangan iproseso kasi pag inilagay yung data, ang tawag diyan—machine readable, so kinakailangang iproseso,” Garcia added.
Garcia pointed out that only two media organizations currently use programs capable of properly filtering the raw data.
He emphasized that the discrepancy — particularly the apparent five-million-vote excess — was caused by some groups lacking systems to filter out duplicate entries from clustered precinct transmissions.
“The [partial and unofficial] count had an excess of five million because of this — because the [entities and parties] did not have a program that would filter the duplicate [entries] as a result of processing,” Garcia said.
“That’s what I want to explain: there is no dagdag-bawas going on,” Garcia reiterated.
Despite the data irregularities, the rankings of the so-called “Magic 12” — the top twelve senatorial candidates — remained unchanged throughout the reporting period.
— The Summit Express