MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday denied that it has been remiss in its duty to randomly audit the results of the automated elections.

"What I understand in the rules for the random manual audit is that it should be immediately conducted right after the election, but it does not say when it should be completed," Comelec spokesman James Jimenez told ABS-CBN's Umagang KayGanda.

Jimenez said that the Comelec agrees with losing presidential candidate John Carlos "JC" de los Reyes's Ang Kapatiran party that the random manual audit should be immediately completed because it would end doubts about the automated elections' credibility.

The Ang Kapatiran Party on Monday filed before the Supreme Court (SC) a 9-page petition for a temporary restraining order on the Comelec's random manual audit.

The Ang Kapatiran party said the Comelec "unlawfully neglected the performance of an act (random manual audit)" because of the delay.

The group said the SC should stop the random audit because it "increases the risk" of the election documents of being tampered with.