MANILA, Philippines — On May 16, 2025, the Gabriela Women’s Party formally submitted a request to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for a thorough investigation into electoral anomalies and a manual recount of votes, as concerns mount over potential discrepancies in the recent midterm elections.

Historically, Gabriela has consistently secured a seat in Congress since 2004; however, preliminary results indicate that the party has ranked 55th in the party-list election, achieving only 0.61% of the votes cast—totaling 256,811.

According to estimates from various electoral analysts, only the top 53 or 54 party-lists are likely to secure representation in the upcoming 20th Congress, suggesting Gabriela is at risk of not clinching a seat.

Amidst these developments, reports surfaced regarding unexpected drops in vote counts reflected in the transparency server around 2 a.m. on election night, alongside allegations of vote duplication.

Comelec attributed these discrepancies to variations in the speed of data transmission across different servers.

The commission explained that the perceived duplication arose from the media's inability to adequately filter or clean the incoming data packages.

In contrast, election watchdog Kontra Daya has cautioned that such explanations could be misleading, indicating a broader issue with the integrity of the election process.

Gabriela officials have expressed their concern, highlighting that issues such as undervoting and overvoting need to be addressed, as they can significantly distort the actual electoral outcomes.

They asserted in their letter, "If votes for a sectoral party representing women and other vulnerable sectors can simply vanish without explanation, it risks disenfranchising not only the candidates but the countless women and marginalized communities whose voices they seek to represent."

The National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), an accredited electoral monitoring group, documented over 3.31 million instances of overvotes for party-lists.

This figure represents ballots that either indicated support for more than one party-list, thereby invalidating them, or were flagged due to stray marks or errors in the automated counting process.

NAMFREL also noted approximately 18.1 million undervotes for House of Representatives candidates, which included nearly 12 million undervotes for party-lists.

Such patterns imply that a sizable portion of voters chose not to select a party-list or that their choices were not recorded due to machine malfunctions.

The allocation of only 63 of the 316 total seats in the House of Representatives to party-lists adheres to the legislation mandating 20% representation.

Projections suggest that three to four party-lists are expected to receive the maximum of three seats, while two to three others might secure two seats, thereby presenting a challenging landscape for Gabriela to maintain legislative presence.

In response to the electoral challenges, Gabriela has reaffirmed its commitment to advocating for full transparency and accountability in the electoral process.

Rep. Arlene Brosas stated, “We will not allow the voices of women, especially those from the margins of society, to be erased — whether by technical glitches, systemic flaws, or even red-tagging.

The fight for genuine democracy and representation must persist.”