Several lawyers on Monday filed impeachment complaints against Commission on Elections (COMELEC) chairperson George Erwin Garcia and six other commissioners, citing alleged violations in the conduct of automated elections.
At a press briefing, Atty. Eldrige Marvin Aceron, founder of the Aceron Public Interest and Legal Association, and Sikini Labastilla, co-founder of Project Damaskus Lawyers, presented the 26-page complaint against Garcia and Commissioners Nelson Celis, Ernesto Maceda Jr., Aimee Ferolino-Ampoloquio, Rey Bulay, Maria Norina Tangaro-Casingal, and Noli Pipo.
The 26-page complaint listed four grounds:
- Culpable violation of Republic Act 8436 due to the alleged use of software version 3.5.0 in all 110,000 automated counting machines during the 2025 midterm elections.
- Betrayal of public trust over the installation and operation of an unauthorized intermediary server, which allegedly delayed accredited transparency servers such as the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) from obtaining election results.
- Betrayal of public trust directed at Garcia for allegedly using a single private IP address in 20,300 vote-counting machine modems.
- Betrayal of public trust arising from “systematic and selective enforcement” practices.
Further allegations included the reported use of a single private IP address in thousands of vote-counting machine modems, as well as claims of “systematic and selective enforcement” practices.
Aceron also questioned the credibility of the COMELEC en banc, alleging that political affiliations outweighed qualifications among its members.
“Look at all their credentials. They do not have any outstanding academic record. None of them. What they have are political affiliations,” he said.
Garcia, however, swiftly rejected the accusations, maintaining that the integrity of recent elections had already been verified through established mechanisms.
“Ang resulta at credibilidad ng 2022 at 2025 eleksyon ay napatunayan ng random manual audit, mga revision ng balota sa iba’t ibang posisyon at lugar, mga citizens’ arm, observers, at kinilala ng international community,” he said.