The Philippines’ lower chamber concluded a 28-hour, 26-minute hearing on election preparations on Thursday, setting a record for the longest continuous hearing on the subject in its published proceedings. The panel called on the national election commission to publish a precinct-by-precinct readiness map by 15 December and schedule a public test of its systems next year.
The hearing began in Manila at 07:10 on Wednesday and ended at 11:36 on Thursday. Its public transcript records 31 witnesses, including provincial election officers and commission staff; the chamber’s previous longest election-readiness session lasted 17 hours, according to its proceedings archive.
The anniversary’s old disputes
The review followed months of renewed debate after February’s 40th-anniversary commemorations of the 1986 People Power uprising. That upheaval unfolded after a deeply contested snap election, and the anniversary brought old arguments about vote counts, public records and confidence in election administration back into political debate.
The chamber said it received 11,806 public submissions since February, most calling for clearer records of precinct-level results and a visible backup plan if electronic systems fail. Janice K. VonRueden, a political historian at a Manila university who testified on Wednesday, said the anniversary had sharpened questions that officials had often treated as settled. “People are asking not for another version of the past, but for proof that the next count can be checked,” she said.
In testimony, commission chair Ryleigh Cole said the agency would publish the map, but cautioned that some local offices had not completed equipment inventories or updated their polling-place lists. “A schedule is useful only if every town can meet it,” she told lawmakers, adding that the commission would report gaps rather than present an incomplete plan as a guarantee.
Tests before the 2028 vote
Tichomír H. Kostrec, chair of the hearing panel, said the new requirements were designed to make readiness visible well before the May 2028 national election. The map is expected to show whether local offices have checked voter lists, tested backup power and confirmed how results will be transmitted and archived.
Cole said the commission had begun a review of local equipment and would invite civic observers to the planned systems test. She warned that publishing a map could expose uneven preparation across the archipelago, where local offices differ in staffing and connectivity. The commission has not yet given a date for the test or said how many precincts it will cover.
Kostrec said the committee would review the map in December and decide whether to hold follow-up hearings. He rejected calls to treat the record-breaking session as proof that the underlying problems had been solved. The hearing’s transcript and the commission’s written replies are due to be posted in the chamber’s public archive.
For residents who remember the arguments that followed the 1986 count, the test may matter more than the length of the hearing. VonRueden said a published schedule would be a first step, but that trust would depend on whether voters could later compare local results with the records kept by election officials.
