MANILA – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday moved anew the reprinting of the official ballots for the May 12 elections following two new temporary restraining orders (TROs) issued by the Supreme Court (SC), including one favoring a national candidate.
In a radio interview, Comelec Chairperson George Garcia said instead of January 22, they are considering moving the reprinting activities to January 25.
“We can postpone the printing of the ballot instead of tomorrow (Wednesday), we will do it on Saturday,” he said.
He said Comelec staff will render overtime work from Wednesday to Friday to adjust the database and include the names of the two aspirants favored by the TROs.
“Our staff will work overtime, overnight again, to change the database, carry out a new serialization of each ballot and also change 1,697 ballot faces for the whole country,” Garcia said.
“That’s what we’re going to do so that we can start printing ballots on Saturday,” he added.
The SC on Tuesday said it has issued TROs favoring senatorial aspirant Francis Leo Marcos and dismissed Albay governor Noel Rosal.
Garcia said they will “act accordingly” if ever the SC issues more TROs favoring aspirants disqualified by the poll body.
Printing of the 73 million ballots for midterm national and local elections started January 6. The Comelec, however, suspended it after the SC issued TROs against the disqualification of several local aspirants.
The Comelec said this resulted in the waste of six million printed ballots. (PNA)