THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) is no longer having two official ballots for the September 2026 Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections (BPE).
In a recent interview, Comelec Chairman George Garcia said they will hand out only one ballot for the BPE to voters containing the candidates for Regional Parliamentary District Representatives, Regional Parliamentary Political Parties (RPPPs), and Parliamentary Sectoral Organizations (PSOs).
"We shall only have one ballot now. We no longer plan on having two ballots," said Garcia.
This comes after a total of 108 COCs have been filed for Regional Parliamentary District Representatives.
Similarly, the Comelec accredited only 16 parties as RPPPs while 23 organizations were registered as PSOs.
Earlier, the Comelec bared plans to provide Bangsamoro voters with two ballots come Election Day owing to the high number of expected RPPPs and PSOs.
Garcia has said one ballot will be for candidates in parliamentary districts and political parties, while another ballot will be for sectoral organizations and will be printed back-to-back.
Meanwhile, the poll chief said they are all set to print the photos and logos in the official ballots that will be used despite calls from some stakeholders to forego such plans.
"Some members of the (Bangsamoro) parliament said that the pictures should not be included because they said that it is not mandatory anyways," said Comelec Chairman George Garcia in an interview last Friday, May 8, 2026.
"What the Comelec did is we insisted that the pictures of the candidates should be included, we insisted that the logos of the parties should be printed," he added.
The poll chief said this is because they believe in the added value of having the photos and logos of those running in the Bangsamoro polls.
"It's only right that our people will vote not just because of the name, but because they saw who it was exactly they wanted," said the official.
"It's better that they can see who are those who actually faced them, who shook their hands with them," added Garcia.
Under the Bangsamoro Electoral Code, each candidate’s/party's photo/logo must be included in the official ballots "as far as practicable." (Anton Banal/SunStar Philippines)
