The House of Representatives on Tuesday approved on third and final reading the proposal to postpone for one year the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections (BSKE) by a 264-6-3 vote.
The House, in a plenary session, approved House Bill 4673 that reschedules the December 5, 2022 elections to December 4, 2023.
Once enacted, incumbent barangay and SK officials will retain their position on hold over capacity “unless sooner removed or suspended for cause.”
House Majority Leader and Zamboanga City Rep. Manuel Jose Dalipe earlier said Speaker Martin G. Romualdez is supportive of the proposal because this would allow the Commission and Election and the Local Government Units to better prepare for clean and orderly barangay polls and provide the government ample time to apply corrective adjustments to the honoraria of poll workers.
“We need to pass this law as soon as possible because time is of the essence. The barangay and SK elections is just a few months away so we are hoping that we can approve this in the House on or before October 1,” Dalipe earlier said.
Dalipe maintained that the Senate has made a clear commitment that they would pass their counterpart measure to allow the postponement of the barangay elections.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) meanwhile said it will start printing 90 million ballots for the BSKE next week with new special features similar to banknotes.
Comelec chairman George Garcia said the poll body also plans to adjust the date of the filing of the certificates of candidacy (COC) for BSKE due to new features on the voting ballots.
Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, one of the bill’s oppositors, meanwhile echoed the concern of Garcia that a postponement of the barangay elections to December 2023 will be a costly exercise because additional funds would be needed to the tune of P18.358 billion constituting the P7.5 billion savings as continuing appropriation and an additional budget of P10.858 billion.
“Elections are the bedrock of democratic governments. Democracy at the grassroots must be assured by holding regular elections for barangay and SK officials and should not be imperiled by repeated postponements of grassroots elections,” Lagman stated in his explanation of no vote to the measure.
“The over-staying village officials need a fresh mandate and those ineffective must be changed. The over-aged youth officials who have long exceeded the age limit must give way to young blood,” he added.
Garcia said that the Comelec is likewise studying to reduce the campaign period for BSKE which is set on December 5.
“We do not want our people to be harassed by candidates going here and there. Before our campaign period was only 40 to 45 days. In this case 60, so we’d like to reduce that,” Garcia said.