MANILA - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Monday started the shutdown of the Automated Election System (AES) and network infrastructure following the conduct of the 2022 national and local elections.

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The Comelec said the shutdown of the AES servers and network infrastructure was done in the presence of political parties and citizen arms but was not open to media coverage for security reasons in the data centers.

The shutdown was instead shown on livestream on the Comelec’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.

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Comelec acting spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco explained the shutdown was part of post-election procedures.

“The Data Centers, similar to the Transparency Server, have already served their purposes po for this Elections, thus, necessitating their decommissioning," he said.

Laudiangco said there will be a backing up procedure to be followed by the shutdown processes.

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The shutdown was conducted in the Central Data Center in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig; the Transparency Data Center in Sucat, Parañaque; and the Backup Data Center in Eastwood City Cyberpark, Quezon City.

The Philippines conducted its national and local elections on May 9.

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