The Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman George Garcia refuted alleged “dagdag-bawas” on the results for the 2025 senatorial race.

In a press conference, Garcia explained that there were media outfits that released election results without “cleansing” the raw data or information it received from the Comelec data server.

Garcia emphasized its full transparency and said, there is no rigging of the election results.

“Wala pong dagdag-bawas, wala pong shading—wala po, it’s just a matter of nag-correct sila kung sino man yung nag-correct dahil nga po sa nadoble yung mga data dahil pina-process…’pag po pala pina-process,  kinakailangan meron kang program para lang linisin at hindi madoble,” Garcia explained.

“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.

He explained there are only two media outfits that have the program to “cleanse” the raw election results from the poll body’s data server before publishing it.

Garcia made this clarification after election results for senatorial race went viral because of an alleged “discrepancy” and “decline” of about 5 million votes received by a senatorial candidate.

“Gusto ko lang magbigay ng paliwanag lang…kanina kasing alas-dos ng madaling araw, nagkaroon kuno ng dagdag-bawas o pagbabawas ng boto. Ang Comelec, wala kaming pagsusuma-tutal, wala kaming pagra-ranking—hindi kami puwedeng gumawa non, bawal sapagkat kami ang Comelec and therefore, dapat yung official ang puwede naming mailabas kung sino yung number 1, number 2…’” he explained.

The National Board of Canvassers (NBOC) resumed its session and received 30 certificates of canvass (COC), including the results of the local absentee voting (LAV).

NBOC initially canvassed COCs from the LAV, Ifugao and Baguio City.

Later this afternoon, NBOC is expected to resume session to canvass the remaining 27 COCs.