The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has agreed to reduce additional spending as much as possible, decreasing its proposed budget for 2023 to P4 billion from the original P10 billion.
“The commission was able to squeeze it to P4 billion, hoping that amount would be acceptable to [the senators],” Comelec chairman George Garcia said.
The Senate subcommittee on finance presided over by Senator Imee Marcos on Monday meanwhile decided to cancel the Comelec budget hearing due to the commission’s failure to present sufficient documents.
“I have not received the budget of the barangay, SK elections for October 2023. I have not received the slides regarding the payment of our (poll) workers, OFWs, and certain other issues that I requested. Nothing has been submitted, except the old PowerPoint that is unresponsive to the queries of most of my colleagues in the Senate,” Marcos said.
Marcos also described the proposed P10 billion additional funding for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections (BSKE) as an “outrageous demand.”
Garcia, after the budget hearing was suspended, said “the Comelec knows our current problem with money. And because of that, we join [the government] in saving. If saving money is needed and we can find a way, the Comelec will do it.”
The Senate is currently on recess but continues to conduct budget hearings.
The Comelec was supposed to spend P8.5 billion for the BSKE, which has been reset from December 5 to October next year. Garcia said the country has 91 million BSKE voters, 25 million of whom are SK voters only.
By next year, the poll body estimates an additional 5 million to 7 million voters, 30,000 more precincts from the current 199,000 precincts, and 100,000 additional election workers as registration will be held anew from November to May 2023.
Garcia said they will submit the documents required by the Senate panel by Monday afternoon.
The Comelec is proposing a bigger budget following the move to reschedule the BSKE from December this year to October 2023. The P10 billion additional fund is on top of the agency’s present budget of over P8 billion.
Marcos expressed disbelief over the amount. She, instead, proposed of just over P1 billion additional budget for the commission.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. earlier signed Republic Act No. 11935 postponing the BSKE.
With the latest postponement, continuing voter registration, a bigger budget, and a redesign of the ballot template are some of the Comelec’s new concerns. With Joel E. Zurbano