May 21, 2025

Kontra Daya released its full report on the 2025 midterm elections which reveals that the electoral system continues to have “serious flaws”. Describing the process as deeply compromised by systemic cheating, disenfranchisement, and a failed automated election system (AES), the report draws from verified incident reports, field monitoring, and analysis by technical experts and civil society groups and highlights several key findings that casts a shadow on the credibility of the 2025 midterm electoral process.

Comelec’s inaction on election violations and issues

During the campaign season, Kontra Daya had already gathered numerous confirmed reports of election violations, which included red tagging and harassment of progressive candidates, use of government resources for campaigning, vote buying, and spread of disinformation.

Despite the mounting evidence and urgent public concern, COMELEC remained largely unresponsive. No decisive investigations have been launched into vote-buying, machine irregularities, or transmission failures. In many cases, COMELEC officials downplayed these problems or dismissed them outright as “minor technicalities” or “fake news,” raising questions about the commission’s independence and commitment to democratic principles.

“COMELEC not only failed to prevent electoral violations—it failed to act when violations were clearly reported… While we welcomed their anti-discrimination resolution during the campaign season, it seems that this move was a mere lip service from the Comelec because they failed to sanction many of the violators, especially the red-taggers,” said Dr. Danilo Arao, convenor of Kontra Daya

The election watchdog also mentions that they’ve noted numerous issues with the ACMs, citing increased disenfranchisement of votes, as well as illegal campaigning during the May 12 polls.

The report presents evidence-based findings gathered from field volunteers, tech experts, and civil society observers, highlighting:

• Rampant and brazen vote-buying, with reports of payments as high as P16,000 per vote
• Red-tagging and fake disqualification claims targeting progressive party-lists and candidates- Misuse of public programs like AKAP for partisan advantage
• Widespread disenfranchisement, especially of overseas voters, with turnout in some regions dropping below 10% due to the poorly implemented online voting system
• Over 300 vote-counting machine failures, and 50% of verified election day reports involving technical glitches
• Delayed and manipulated data transmission, with transparency servers receiving results long after COMELEC
• A serious source code mismatch, with COMELEC deploying software never independently reviewed or verified

Partylist system doesn’t serve marginalized

Originally intended to give representation to marginalized sectors, political dynasties, big businesses, and individuals connected to state forces have gamed the party-list system to expand and/or extend their political power. Kontra Daya reiterates that the party-list system has been hijacked by these. Of 156 party-lists reviewed, at least 86 were found to have questionable affiliations inconsistent with their claimed constituencies.

“With all of these issues, the Comelec should be held accountable for its blunders and continued inaction. We also call for reforms with the partylist system, and adoption of a hybrid system for the next elections,” said Arao.

Kontra Daya calls on Filipinos to push for electoral reform ahead of the 2028 elections.

The report concludes with three urgent calls to action:

• Reform the Party List System – through legislation or judicial review of the Atong Paglaum ruling that opened the system to elite domination
• Replace the flawed AES – citing fatal flaws in transparency, security, and accountability
• Adopt a hybrid election system – with manual precinct-level counting and electronic transmission of results, a model that does not require new legislation

Kontra Daya calls on civil society, tech experts, and the public to intensify efforts to demand accountability, protect the sanctity of the vote, and ensure reforms before the 2028 elections.

Download the full report here. https://tinyurl.com/2025KDReport

Reference: Dr. Danilo Arao, Kontra Daya Convenor