Almost 85 percent of Cebu City voters voted – Comelec

CEBU, Philippines — As the election wraps up, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has logged an overall voter turnout of 84.52% for Cebu City, which was ruled to be “high enough.”

Yesterday morning, the Comelec officially concluded the canvassing of votes in Cebu City. This was led by chairman Ferdinand Gujilde, who assessed the process and concluded it was peaceful and successful.

The 84.52% voter turnout was recorded for both the South and North Districts, which summed up to around 609,789 votes. This is out of the 721,469 registered voters in Cebu City.

Gujilde highlighted that these figures are already considered high, adding that what could be considered low would be those in the 60 or 70% range.

“Pero di g’yud ta ka expect of 100% voters turnout kay number 1, duna nay uban nga di na interesado, cynical na sila, or wala na sila diri, or kapoyan na mobotar tungod sa ilang condition,” said Gujilde.

According to Gujilde, while there may have been glitches along the way, he does not consider these as irregularities but rather as part of a margin of error, which he added cannot be avoided.

“Because it is not a perfect system,” he said.

Gujilde further said that as this election came with massive preparations beforehand, its outcome was exactly how they wished it to be. In line with this, he commended the local police whom he said laid out an orderly and comprehensive security plan.

The canvassing of votes began at around 7 PM on Monday, May 12, 2025, and was completed the following morning. According to Gujilde, the delays were attributed to some mishaps involving the electoral boards, wherein the votes from Persons With Disabilities and Persons Deprived of Liberty were not fed into the system.

“Unya nag close voting na sila. So they have to open it again, i-re-zero, i-feed ang mga ballots balik and hundred ballots (will take) maybe an hour or two,” said Gujilde, adding that there were around 700 ballots to refeed.

Gujilde further mentioned that they also manually accounted for at least 15 precincts, mostly from mountain barangays, which faced difficulties with network signals during the electronic transmission.

As of yesterday, all physical ballots had already been delivered and secured by the City Treasurer’s Office.

Now that the election and the proclamation of winners are already done, Gujilde said the next step for Comelec is to await the submission of the Statement of Contributions and Expenditures, which should be filed within 30 days after the election.

“No extension, deadline is deadline,” said Gujilde.

Gujilde also said that as of yesterday they had not received any protests regarding the results, which he admitted surprised him.

He added that they received minor complaints and reports of inconvenience from some voters, which he noted is normal.

“Pero para nako, kitang tanan ma inconvenience sa election kay init, we are in a tropical country unya summer pa g’yud atong elections, so ato nalang hunahunaon nga mao na atong contribution to democracy,” said Gujilde. — (FREEMAN)