With a four months left before the upcoming election strikes, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has already stated that they are lacking essential equipment needed and necessary for the upcoming polls.

It was stated by William Depasupil for Manila Times that there are still 53,000 vote counting machines (VCMs) from Smartmatic Corporation that are yet to be send in our country by the end of the month. Machines needs to undergo hardware testing before being accepted by the commission.

Accoring to Atty. James Jimenez, chief of Comelec’s Education and Information Division, “May mga paperwork pa, so medyo mabagal sila. Inaabutan ng weekends or holidays [ang proseso]. Medyo nade-delay nang kaunti,”

Meanwhile, Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista said that he has already communicated with BOC Commissioner Alberto Lina to ask for the speedy release of the machines. It was also stated that they are having booming voters coming round now that can resulted in increasing the previous electoral ratio of one machine for every 800 voters to a new ratio of one machine for every 1,000 voters.