12/05/2025 (Agence Europe) – On Monday 12 May, the EU Election Observation Mission (EOM) announced that it had been unable to fully observe the Philippine elections on polling day since it did not have full access to polling stations. Although the EU and the Philippine authorities had signed a mutual commitment granting the EOM freedom of access at any time to all polling precincts and canvassing centres, following letters and instructions from the Philippine Electoral Commission, the EOM found that it had no longer been granted the necessary guarantees of adequate access to polling stations. As a result, the EOM was unable to ensure meaningful observation of the voting phase in polling precincts and did not deploy the whole team of observers as planned. However, all the EU observers were deployed to the counting process after the polls had closed. (CG)