The Partido Demokratiko Pilipino–Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) has refused to accept the results of the 2025 midterm elections, filing a formal petition before Senate President Chiz Escudero to investigate what it claims were “widespread irregularities” during the polls.
PDP-Laban, the party founded by detained former President Rodrigo Duterte—currently jailed at Scheveningen Prison in The Hague over human rights cases filed before the International Criminal Court (ICC)—is now pushing the Senate to dig into alleged election anomalies.
The petition, led by Atty. Israelito Torreon and Atty. Jimmy Bondoc, specifically urges the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, chaired by Senate Deputy Majority Leader Rodante Marcoleta, an ally of the party, to conduct a full-scale probe.
“On behalf of PDP-Laban and Duter7, the companions of Atty. Jimmy Bondoc, in the past elections, we are filing today a petition letter asking for a Senate investigation of all irregularities that happened in the 2025 local and national elections,” Torreon said in an ambush interview on August 14, 2025.
The petition cites the following alleged irregularities:
- Mishandling of election paraphernalia (boxes of transmission devices found inside a private residence)
- Online voting irregularities
- Undocumented destruction of six million ballots
- Questionable procurement activities by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC)
- Clandestine modification of automated counting machine (ACM) software
- Election day irregularities, including the exclusion of 17 million senatorial votes due to ballot rejections by ACMs, rampant mismatches between ballots and voter receipts, and hijacked electronic transmission of election returns.
Torreon, who also serves as legal counsel for detained televangelist Apollo Quiboloy, and Bondoc, a singer-turned-lawyer, both ran under PDP-Laban’s “DuterTEN” bloc but failed to secure Senate seats.
So far, neither the camp of Senate President Escudero nor the Senate itself has issued a response to PDP-Laban’s petition.