The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said no to call of some groups to conduct a manual recount of the recently concluded 2025 national and local election citing the existing law does not proved budget for it.

Comelec chairman George Garcia said the automated election law needs to be amended or a new law has to be passed to make way for the call of a manual recount of Eleksyon 2025 votes, and provide a budget for such.

He explained that the intention of Republic Act No. 9369 or the Automated Election Law is to have “full” automated polls, and not one with manual counting.

However, he said that the law mandates a random manual audit which would check ballots from select clustered precincts.

“Wala po kasi tayong budget para diyan sa mga pagbibilang na ganyan kung talaga bang ‘yan ay pine-prescribe. Bakit? Simula nu’ng 2010 na nag-automated election tayo, ay wala po tayong mga ganyang klaseng pagbilang,” Garcia said in an interview.

“Kung pagbibigyan natin sila, sino po magbibilang? Saan bibilangin? Magkano ang budget? Saan kukuhain ang budget? Anong proseso? Anong procedure ng pagbilang?”

The Comelec earlier said that an election protest is the only way to trigger a manual recount of votes, following the call of detained senatorial candidate and religious leader Apollo Quiboloy for a manual recount.

Since the Comelec already proclaimed on Saturday the 12 winning senators for the 2025 national and local elections, Garcia also said that the poll body will lose jurisdiction if there will be a manual recount as the Senate Electoral Tribunal now holds control.

With this, he said that a new law is needed or the Automated Election Law has to be amended as it may already be outdated.

The 2025 election is a good opportunity for us to create new laws or amend the Automated Election Law because it’s been here for a long time. There have been many changes in technology. It may not be updated already, Garcia said.

“Ako ay nag-a-agree kung kakailanganin ng pagbabago o overhaul ng batas. Bakit nga ba hindi? Pero sa kasalukuyan, tali ang kamay ng Comelec. Hindi kami makakakilos nang hindi binabago ang batas sapagkat tagapagpatupad lang kami ng ating mga umiiral na batas,” he added.

Last Wednesday, May 14, the Comelec officially started the random manual audit (RMA) of ballots from over 700 randomly selected clustered precincts and one online voting post for Eleksyon 2025.

At least 60 auditing teams from the Department of Education (DepEd) would check the performance of the automated counting machines (ACMs) and examine the ballots from 726 randomly-selected clustered precincts to validate their accuracy during the