The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is set to commence the production of official ballots for the 2025 national and local elections (NLE).
According to National Printing Office (NPO) Director Rene Acosta, the COMELEC will print this volume of target ballots through the National Printing Office between December 2024 and March 2025 utilizing two HP machines donated by Miru Systems Company Limited.
“Hindi lang naman dalawa yung makina na meron dito ang HP. Merong tatlo actually. Yung isa naka-standby for whatever contingencies, eto pa ring HP yung gagamitin namin. Pero in the extreme na may ganun pa ring problema since bago nga, meron naman kaming contingencies. Of course, it’s a ballot printing. Hindi namin pwedeng gamitin na umaasa lang kami dito. We have contingencies with the COMELEC,” Acosta said.
(HP has three machines here; one is on standby for any contingencies, and we’ll still use this HP; however, because it’s new, we have contingencies in place. Of course, it’s for ballot printing, so we can’t rely solely on it; we have contingencies with COMELEC.)
According to Comelec chairperson George Erwin Garcia, 70 million ballots are specifically created for national and municipal elections, while 2 million are for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) elections, and the remaining 1 million are test ballots for COMELEC’s voter education efforts.
Garcia said the figure might potentially be increased depending on the outcome of the Voter Registration Program, which ends on September 30.
On Tuesday, two big HP printing machines arrived at the NPO and were quickly examined by COMELEC officials, led by Chairman George Erwin Garcia.
Tony Paguirigan, HP Category Manager for Asia Pacific, stated that the printing machines provided were the “first two units in Asia.”
“Instead na apat na makina, dalawang makina na lang. Kasi itong makina na to, kaya niyang mag-produce ng up to 62M pages per month ng letter sized na balota,” says Paguirigan.
(There are currently only two machines, as this one can create up to 62 million sheets of letter-sized ballots per month.)
Both of the machines are expected to create up to 1 million ballots every day.
These are all part of Miru Systems Company Limited’s P1.6 billion agreement for next year’s election ballot printing.
This is included in the total contract price of P17.988 billion for the government’s lease arrangement with Miru Systems for next year’s elections.
The machines contain capabilities that might cut “human intervention” by 50%, and votes will be printed “precinct-specific,” according to Garcia.
“Ang ibig sabihin, yung balota na naka-assign sa 1A ay hindi pwedeng magamit sa precinct 2A. Gayundin po yung mga makina natin. Naka-precinct specific din po iyan,” said the election chief.”
(This means that the ballot given to 1A cannot be used in precinct 2A, and our devices are also precinct-specific.)
Hindi ito pabilisan ng pag-imprenta ng balota kaya yung quality ng mismong balota na ii-imprenta natin.”
(This is not about rushing up the printing of the ballots, but rather the quality of the ballots that we will print,” Garcia stated after inspecting the two supplied machines.)