Press Release
November 19, 2020

SPONSORSHIP SPEECH OF SENATOR RISA HONTIVEROS FOR THE 2021 BUDGET OF COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS

Mr. President, I am pleased to sponsor the budget of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), the government institution tasked to oversee the conduct of free, orderly, fair, and clean democratic exercise of electing our leaders. For 2021, a preparatory year for the conduct of the 2022 Presidential and Local Elections, the committee recommends to give the agency a P 14,844,897,000 budget, which is P 500,000,000 higher than what is proposed in the General Appropriations Bill. The agency's 2021 budget is significantly higher than this year's appropriations owing to the preparations the body is tasked to undertake leading to 2022.

This committee proposed an additional amount of P 500 Million specifically for COMELEC'S Preparatory National and Local Elections (PNLE) activities, which includes, among others, the lease of additional Vote Counting Machines for its plan to increase the number of clustered precincts, while reducing the number of voters in these precincts to more manageable levels in anticipation of the new normal.

While Comelec wanted an additional P 2B for the lease of additional 10,000 VCMs, the sub-committee believes that the approved additional amount should be enough for the agency given that its leadership has committed during the public hearing that they can readily adjust to whatever budgetary support Congress is willing to provide and because more than 92 percent of the 97,350 VCMs it purchased in 2018 remain operational.

Having said that, this representation is now ready to respond to questions about the budget of the agency.

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