After March 9 elections, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) has started its manual encoding of printed election returns at the University of Sto. Tomas Quadricentennial Pavilion on Tuesday. 

PPCRV will check manually the vote counts against vote-counting machines (VCMs) as speculations spread on social media on the questionable gap between the two opposing presidential candidates. 

PPCRV spokesperson Atty. Van Dela Cruz explained that they are given the 4th copy of the printed transmission copies of the election returns which they will use to audit the votes, accurately without manipulation. Help desks, assisted by Lawyers from the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) and Legal Network for Truthful Elections (Lente), and phone lines are open for election-related reports.

Dela Cruz said some precincts refused to release PPCRV copies of election returns but then were later resolved. It has received around 2,000 election returns as of Tuesday morning.

“We are not about speed, we are about accuracy”, Dela Cruz said in a press briefing.

The PPCRV is a national parish-based, non-partisan lay movement that has been monitoring the election process since 1991.