Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Erwin Garcia has assured Vice President Sara Duterte that the upcoming 2025 elections will be free from any form of electoral fraud.
Garcia emphasized the poll body’s commitment to transparency and integrity, stressing that the elections will be conducted fairly.
“We guarantee that the elections will be transparent to uphold integrity and ensure that the rightful winners are proclaimed,” Garcia said in an Inquirer.net report. He also noted that the vice president’s concerns about election cheating were not directed at the Comelec.
The assurance comes after Duterte warned of potential election fraud in the 2025 midterm polls, claiming that strong voter support for PDP-Laban’s candidates could be a factor. Speaking to reporters outside Villamor Air Base on Tuesday night, she cautioned about election manipulation.
Duterte had attempted to visit her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, who was bound for The Hague but was denied entry. The former leader is facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court over alleged crimes against humanity during his administration’s war on drugs.
The vice president also criticized her father’s arrest as politically motivated and dismissed any response from President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as irrelevant. The rift between Duterte and Marcos has been growing, despite their previous alliance under the “Uniteam” banner in the 2022 elections.
Tensions further escalated following Duterte’s controversial online statement, where she ordered the assassination of Marcos, First Lady Liza Marcos, and House Speaker Martin Romualdez if she were to be killed.
