Voting center in Abra catches fire

Flames engulf a classroom in Dandangla Elementary School in Bangued, Abra on the night of May 6, 2025. — Photo from Commission on Elections chairman George Erwin Garcia

MANILA, Philippines — A voting center in Abra’s provincial capital Bangued caught fire early Wednesday morning, according to Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman George Erwin Garcia.

“Dandangla voting center in Bangued is now 70 percent destroyed through burning,” Garcia told reporters, citing Abra’s provincial election adviser Nick Jacob.

However, Garcia noted that the automatic counting machine (ACM) has not yet been delivered there.

Comelec is still waiting for the recommendation of its regional office regarding the new location of the voting center.

According to Comelec data, Abra has 188,957 registered voters, 35,227 of whom are in Bangued.

The razed voting center is among the 24 polling centers in the whole province.

Abra recently had a spate of election-related killings, with at least eight people reported dead between Feb. 28 and March 26.

READ: Pre-election slays in Abra ‘alarming,’ says RPOC head