The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Saturday said that giving the last senatorial number to Subar Guinthum Mustapha would be "unfair."

The Comelec made the statement after former Senator Kiko Pangilinan suggested that the poll body assign Mustapha the number 67 or the last senatorial candidate on the ballot.

The Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) against Mustapha’s disqualification, prompting the Comelec to suspend ballot printing to include his name.

With Mustapha's addition, 20 candidates, including Pangilinan, will have their ballot numbers changed, necessitating the revision and reprinting of their election paraphernalia to reflect the updated numbers.

In a message to reporters, Comelec Spokesperson Rex Laudiangco said the alphabetical arrangement of names in ballots, which is based on the surname, "is the most equitable and most objective order/sequence of candidates by which no particular person will be intentionally given premium and preference."

"Now, the reason for the High Court's issuance of a TRO is to have candidate Mustapha be included in the said list of candidates and official ballots, and therefore, he must treated equally as with the other candidates, with the rules on said sequence/order being afforded also to him," Laudiangco stressed.

"To put his name last on the list would go against fair play and equality of treatment," he added.

Laudiangco further explained that the inclusion of the names of one national candidate and seven local candidates would still require the reprinting of ballots given the change/amendment in the automated elections system, particularly on the election management system, the automated counting machine, and consolidation and canvassing system, including the online voting and counting system.

"In other words, a change or amendment in these systems necessitates a corresponding regeneration of new ballot faces and reserialization of ballots, and the corresponding reprinting of ballots," he added.

The Comelec will generate new 1,667 ballot face templates and serialization at the its warehouse in Biñan, Laguna on Tuesday, 21 January.

He added that the poll body intends to restart ballot production "at the soonest possible" time to mitigate and recoup lost ballot printing time.

"Once again, the Comelec assures the Filipino people that we are fully in control of the situation, and that these supervening events which admittedly impacted election preparations and caused delays in ballot production and other preparatory election activities are hurdles the Commission can completely handle, overcome, and resolve in ways that will not affect the conduct of the National, Local, and BARMM Parliamentary Elections, which shall proceed as constitutionally mandated on 12 May 2025."