Quezon City: The Commission on Elections (Comelec) commenced the destruction of approximately 6.7 million ballots that went unused during the May 12 midterm elections. On Friday, the process was initiated at the National Printing Office (NPO) in Quezon City, marking the beginning of a significant operation to handle election materials responsibly.

According to Philippines News Agency, Comelec Commissioner Rey Bulay, who heads the Committee on Ballot Printing, stated that a total of 6,763,649 official ballots are scheduled for destruction through a melting process at a facility in Pampanga. This operation is expected to continue until the second week of June. In addition to the unused ballots, the Comelec plans to destroy 32,680 accountable forms.

Bulay elaborated on the process, explaining that personnel will manually tear the ballots and other election forms over a period of 10 days. Following this, the materials will be transported to the facility in Pampanga for the final stage of destruction. The initial tearing will occur in Quezon City, after which the remnants will be collected and transferred. The entire process will be livestreamed, and records will be archived by the Comelec.

The number of ballots and forms to be destroyed this year exceeds those from the 2022 elections, where only 3 million ballots were invalid. Bulay attributed the increase to printing errors and court-issued temporary restraining orders (TROs). These TROs were issued by the Supreme Court in response to Comelec's disqualification of several candidates, leading to a temporary halt and subsequent reprinting of approximately 6 million ballots.