Pangasinan VM seeks Comelec help after RTC voids election results
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An urgent petition was filed by proclaimed Rosales, Pangasinan Vice Mayor John Isaac Kho with the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) to restrain enforcement of a Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 53 ruling that voided the Automated Counting Machine (ACM) results in the 12 May 2025 elections and declared his opponent the winner.
The RTC, in a decision dated 24 Nov. 2025, reversed Kho’s proclamation despite his 1,208-vote lead based on official ACM returns, which showed 20,201 votes for Kho against 18,993 for protestant Susan Casareno.
Instead, the court credited a manual recount that yielded 20,705 votes for Casareno and 18,730 for Kho.
The RTC said it relied on the physical ballots as the “best and most conclusive evidence” of voter intent and questioned the reliability of the ACMs, citing discrepancies between machine-generated election returns and the ballots manually appreciated.
“The automated counting machines did not accurately read and count the votes cast,” the decision stated, noting complaints that some Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) receipts did not match votes cast.
Kho's camp warned that the ruling puts the credibility of the 2025 automated elections at risk.
“If discrepancies like this can happen in Pangasinan, where else could ACM results be questioned? This contradicts earlier statements by COMELEC Chairman George Garcia that the 2025 elections achieved a 99.997% accuracy rate,” his camp said.
Kho has alleged ballot tampering and substitution, citing 106 additional votes credited to Casareno without matching VVPAT receipts.
Observers also reported mismatched chairman signatures, misaligned COMELEC logos, paper color discrepancies, and phantom marks — irregularities Kho says point to possible tampering.
Kho, to address these concerns, filed a motion seeking the decryption and printing of ballot images stored in the ACMs’ secure data devices, arguing that comparing digital images with physical ballots is a vital safeguard under election rules.
He maintains that denying access to the ballot images prevents him from presenting critical evidence to prove tampering.
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