President Rodrigo Duterte said on Wednesday that he no longer wanted to handpick officers-in-charge to lead the country’s more than 40,000 barangays once the local polls gets postponed.
“Sinabi ko kanina sa House of Representatives through the Speaker, ‘wag mong ibigay sa akin, mag-appoint-appoint. Ayaw ko. Ibigay ninyo sa iba,” [I told the House of Representatives earlier through the Speaker—don’t give me the power to appoint. I don’t want it. Give it to someone else.], Duterte said in an interview with state broadcaster PTV4 Tuesday.
Duterte, however, reiterated that the barangay elections, slated to take place on Oct. 23, should be postponed since nearly half of the country’s barangay captains were into the illegal drug trade.
‘‘They will really win, because they have money. You know barangays, you either scare the people or buy them off,” Duterte said.
“If you don’t believe me, okay with me, no problem, let’s have elections. But if those into drugs are reelected, that’s not my problem,” he added.
The Interior Department had earlier said that Duterte wanted to handpick OICs if the barangay polls will be reset.
The Commission on Elections earlier decided to move to a later date the filing of candidacy papers and the election period for the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections this October.
In a resolution, the Comelec decided to move the election period for the barangay and youth polls to Oct. 1 to Oct. 30, from its original date of Sept. 23 to Oct. 30.
The filing of Certificates of Candidacy, on the other hand, was pushed back to Oct. 5 until Oct. 11, from its original Sept. 23 to 30 filing period.
The Comelec approved the changes to the calendar of activities in its en banc session on Tuesday.