TWO lawyers are now seeking the support of at least one member of Congress willing to endorse their impeachment complaint against the top executives of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) headed by Chairman George Erwin Garcia.
At a press conference on March 30, Atty. Eldrige Marvin Aceron, founding partner of Aceron & Attorneys and Founder of the Aceron Public Interest and Legal Association (APILA); and Atty. Sikini Labastilla, a co-founder of Project Damaskus Lawyers, showed the draft of their complaint against the respondents.
Under the law and the rules of Congress, any impeachment complaint would need to be endorsed by at least one sitting member of Congress before it can be accepted and calendared for formal hearing.
As a constitutional office on the other hand, poll commissioners can only be removed thru the process of impeachment.
Aside from Garcia, who previously served as election lawyer to President Marcos Jr., the other respondents are commissioners: Nelson Celis. Ernesto Ferdinand Maceda Jr., Aimee Ferolino-Ampoloquio, Rey Bulay, Maria Norina Tangaro-Casingal, and Noli Pipo.
The complainants said they believe the COMELEC “no longer the honorable institution it used to be.”
The complaint accused the respondents of culpable violation of Republic Act (RA) No. 8436 (the Automated Election System Law), commission of “high crimes” arising from a documented pattern of institutional misconduct across two consecutive election cycles, the 2022 and the 2025 elections and betrayal of public trust.
It alleged the COMELEC deployed software version 3.5.0 in all 110,000 automated counting machines (ACMs) used in the May 12, 2025, elections. The version allegedly used was not the source code subject to mandatory source code review under RA 8436.
The COMELEC also allegedly installed and operated an unauthorized intermediary server designated “Data Center 3” through which all election results in the May 12, 2025 elections were routed before reaching the five accredited transparency servers.
This supposedly left the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) without results for over two hours after polls closed, an incident Garcia admitted the following day.
The complaint also accused the COMELEC of concealing the deployment of a private Internet Protocol (IP) address (192.168.0.2) covering 20,300 vote-counting machine modems during the 2022 polls that elected President Marcos Jr. It noted that Garcia only admitted to the incident “fourteen months after the election.”
The complaint also accused the respondents of “selective enforcement” of the campaign finance law by clearing Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero (P30-million contractor donation) and Senator Rodante Marcoleta (P75 million undisclosed donations) despite the finding of “non-compliance” by the COMELEC’s own Political Finance and Affairs Department.
The complainants said they are under time constraint to pursue the respondents with commissioners Ferolino and Bulay set to complete their terms of office next year and with Garcia set to supervise the 2028 presidential election.
“Garcia will supervise the 2028 elections with the same undisclosed transmission architecture, the same pattern of evidence concealment, and the same selective enforcement record that are the subject of this complaint.
“That cannot happen without a formal legal record demanding accountability,” they added.