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The Philippines, long regarded as a regional pioneer in election modernization, is now in the midst of a crisis that threatens to unravel years of progress. The 2025 national elections—plagued by widespread technical failures—have cast a shadow over the country’s hard-earned reputation.
The breakdown began at the very start of election day, when President Bongbong Marcos himself struggled to cast his vote as the automated counting machine repeatedly failed to scan his ballot. This scenario—machines rejecting ballots, malfunctioning printers, and stalled voting lines—was not an isolated case. As widely reported, similar incidents unfolded in thousands of precincts nationwide.
Local election watchdogs like LENTE and the PPCRV warned that the problems were not merely technical hiccups but signs of deeper systemic failures. Overvoting occurred on a large scale due to low-quality paper ballots and substandard pens that caused ink to bleed and marks to be misread. Many voters also reported discrepancies between their selections and the printed voter receipts (VVPATs).
As voting ended and vote-counting machines began transmitting results, media tech teams discovered that thousands of vote transmissions had been duplicated—corresponding to nearly five million votes. COMELEC later claimed it had corrected the issue in the early hours of the morning, but the lack of transparency around the fix only deepened public distrust.
The magnitude of these glitches is difficult to overstate. They have cast a dark cloud over the credibility of the electoral process and triggered widespread public outcry. What’s worse, this is not the first time Miru Systems—the technology provider responsible for this year’s infrastructure—has been implicated in election failures. In Iraq’s 2018 parliamentary elections, Miru’s technology failed so catastrophically that the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) was forced to mandate a full nationwide recount. Today, echoes of that episode are reverberating in the Philippines, where some public officials, civil society organizations, and voters alike are starting to demand a similar audit.
Filipinos waited for hours under the punishing heat, queuing with hope and conviction that their vote would count. That trust now hangs in the balance. A transparent manual recount—as already requested by the PPCRV—is essential not only to confirm who truly won and lost, but also to begin restoring public faith in the democratic process. In parallel, election data must be made fully accessible to independent auditors.
The Philippines stands at a crossroads. The world is watching. These elections can still be redeemed—not through spin or silence, but through truth, transparency, and accountability. Without that, the country’s proud legacy of electoral innovation may be lost. But with courage and reform, it can emerge stronger—and once again lead by example.
