Volunteers of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting wait for election returns at the PPCRV Command Center in Sampaloc, Manila on May 12, 2025. Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News/File  MANILA — The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting is calling for additional volunteers as physical election returns continue to come in at the command center.

PPCRV spokesperson Ana De Villa-Singson said 11,860 printed election returns have arrived, about 12.71% of all election returns nationwide.

“We already have critical mass because we already have 12% in house and more coming in today through our couriers,” Singson said in a briefing Wednesday, May 14. 

Singson appealed to interested volunteers as she emphasized the critical role of the group’s auditing process.

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WHERE TO GO

The PPCRV Command Center is at the the 2nd floor of the PLDT Sampaloc Office at the corner of España  and Macaraig Streets in Sampaloc, Manila.

The main qualifications to be a volunteer or poll watcher under PPCRV are: 

1. Be a registered voter in the city or municipality where one volunteers
2. Be of good moral characterHave no record of conviction with final judgment to any electoral offense and/or crime
3. Should know how to read and write in Filipino, English, or the prevailing local language
4. Should not be related within the fourth civil degree of consanguinity or affinity to the chairperson

“Please, please come here. This audit is very important because we will actually check the integrity of the transmitted vote,” Singson said.

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The PPCRV is an accredited citizens’ arm of the Commission on Elections mandated to conduct the unofficial partial count.

VERIFICATION OF ELECTION RETURNS

Singson noted that in the previous elections, they saw differences during the audit but most of them were “explainable”.

PPCRV volunteers compare the print-outs of Elections Returns against the ERs transmitted electronically.

Ideally, the two should match. 

“Verifying can be, not naman exhausting, but you need to rest once in a while, so we really need volunteers to come in,” she added.

 The election watchdog hopes to match the number of volunteers they had in the 2022 elections, where 64,000 served at the command center and around 350,000 volunteered at polling centers nationwide.

 ‘HEROIC SERVICE' 

Singson recognized the service of volunteers as she cited several challenges that they face in collecting and transporting the physical ERs to the command center. 

“We already got reports that sometimes those ERs are not being given to us. That’s why we can never get 100% of the ERs. The other challenges are logistics,” she disclosed.

The PPCRV is assigned to get the third out of the nine pre-transmission ERs, according to Singson.

“I’m taking this chance to say thank you to every single volunteer, I mean you’re doing heroic service, you are rendering heroic service for the country especially since they have no expectation naman of anything, this is just really all service,” the PPCRV official said.