Former House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco has filed an election protest before the Commission on Elections (Comelec), seeking a manual recount following his narrow defeat in the Marinduque gubernatorial race.

Velasco lost to Mel Go by just 389 votes in the 2025 midterm elections. According to official results, Go garnered 66,115 votes while Velasco received 65,726.

Velasco’s legal counsel, Atty. Rowell Ilagan, filed the protest on Friday, contesting the results from 189 precincts. Ilagan cited 10,175 unaccounted votes in the province, claiming these could have influenced the final outcome.

Ilagan raised concerns over possible overvotes, undervotes, or machine-reading errors, noting that while 142,000 ballots were processed in Marinduque, only 131,000 votes were counted for the gubernatorial position.

Ilagan also cited allegations of vote-buying, intimidation, and other forms of electoral fraud, supported by witness affidavits.