MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday condemned what it described as apparent efforts to spread misinformation, following the emergence of inconsistencies in vote tallies reported before dawn for the 2025 elections.
Comelec Chairman George Garcia raised questions about the origin of unofficial figures being circulated, warning the public to scrutinize the source of such information.
“The public should be asking — where are these figures coming from, and who is releasing them?” Garcia said in a media interview.
Garcia explained that election results from precincts are transmitted through a system similar to group text messaging, simultaneously sent to multiple recipients: Comelec, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), the majority and minority political parties, and accredited media outlets.
“Each of these groups has its own server. The results displayed on the Comelec website come directly from precincts — but these are unofficial,” Garcia clarified.
He added that while multiple entities receive the same data, not all may report the information in full, possibly releasing only partial results.
“Comelec does not do a running total. We don’t rank candidates or identify who is leading. We’re not allowed to rank because people might mistakenly assume the data is official,” Garcia emphasized.
Referring to early morning reports of questionable vote counts circulating online, Garcia urged the public to verify the legitimacy of data.
“If something was released early this morning and labeled only ‘Halalan 2025’ — without any indication of which organization it came from — then clearly, someone is spreading misinformation or manipulating the data for public perception. That information didn’t come from any of the official recipients of precinct transmissions,” he warned.
“So the question remains: who released that data, and where did it come from? One thing is certain — it did not come from the Comelec. We don’t total or rank votes. We don’t do that,” Garcia reiterated.
Sharp Decline in Reported Votes
Earlier Tuesday, several media organizations observed that partial, unofficial results on the Comelec’s media server showed a sudden decrease in vote counts, despite a steady increase in election returns (ERs).
An internal check revealed that some precinct transmissions had been duplicated during the data consolidation process, leading to inflated initial figures that were later corrected.
For example, as of 1:32 a.m., Senator Christopher “Bong” Go had 26,683,453 votes. By 2:11 a.m., that figure dropped to 21,599,993 — a decline of more than 5 million votes.
Other candidates experienced similar reductions:
- Bam Aquino: 20,572,272 → 16,750,496
- Bato dela Rosa: 20,466,823 → 16,529,816
- Erwin Tulfo: 16,868,042 → 13,725,209
- Kiko Pangilinan: 15,036,876 → 12,244,219
- Rodante Marcoleta: 15,001,038 → 12,132,562
- Ping Lacson: 14,822,400 → 12,078,310
- Tito Sotto: 14,569,262 → 11,873,441
- Pia Cayetano: 14,324,330 → 11,644,257
- Camille Villar: 13,459,585 → 10,937,140
- Lito Lapid: 13,165,419 → 10,737,838
- Imee Marcos: 13,084,362 → 10,645,870
Comelec is expected to issue a more detailed explanation and further updates as it continues its validation of incoming results.
