The Commission on Elections has slowed down the preparations for the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections after Congress moved to postpone the scheduled October 2017 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan polls to May 2018 with a holdover provision among incumbent village officials.
The Comelec said it has already suspended the printing of ballots for the village and SK elections, and slowed down the preparations for the local elections.
The poll body made the move after Congress reached a consensus to hold the barangay elections in May next year.
Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez earlier said a law to again postpone the poll should be enacted immediately to avoid unnecessary and untimely expenses.
The poll official said that the sooner the House passes a bill postponing the elections, the better.
Barangay and SK elections are scheduled for Oct. 23, 2017 after President Rodrigo Duterte signed a law that postponed the elections last Oct. 31, 2016.
Meanwhile, Senate President Ralph Recto said the controversy hounding Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista should not “derail nor distract” the Comelec rank-and-file in preparing for the barangay elections.
“Their attitude, I think, is that it’s all systems go. Until Congress pulls the plug yet again on the twice-postponed village polls, they should follow their timetable,” he said.
While he is not yet ready to agree 100 percent with it, Recto said the Lower House’s plan to immediately pass a bill resetting the October polls to May next year and allow incumbents to continue in a holdover capacity is better than the suggestion to appoint officers-in-charge.
“Was it not the Palace which handpicked the 42,306 acting barangay chairmen, in such a very short time,” Recto said. “And that mode of selection can be tainted with criticisms of being whimsical and partisan.”
Recto said that “at present, my position is to hold the elections in October as scheduled. Postponing it by seven months makes no great difference.”
“Perhaps, in critical areas under martial law, a deferment is justified, but in other areas hindi,” Recto said.
Deferring the elections anew, he added, “would mean that tens of millions of pesos spent in preparatory activities will again be wasted.”
“We cannot save money with the cancellation. We can only save money if we are permanently cancelling the polls. But we are only postponing it. So instead of spending at least P7 billion this year, we will only delay spending it by seven months, so in the end, we will still have to spend that P7 billion,” Recto said.
In this year’s national budget, Congress deemed as “continuing appropriations” the unspent P1.1 billion earmarked in the 2015 national budget for the registration of voters and the holding of the SK elections.
Also considered rolled over is the P6.5-billion fund in the 2016 national budget for the holding of the barangay council polls and the registration of qualified voters.
For 2018, the Comelec has a proposed budget of P 15.9 billion, “a big five times jump from its 2017 adjusted allocation of P 3.1 billion,” Recto said. “If we postpone the barangay polls, will the Comelec ask for a supplemental budget?” Recto said.
Recto said it would also be presumptuous to propose that the plebiscite to ratify the Bangsamoro Basic Law will piggy-back with barangay elections.
Recto said barangay elections are urgent so that elected village leaders have a new mandate in spending the billions of pesos that barangays receive annually as mandatory share from national taxes collected.
He said barangays got as their Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) shares P84.42 billion in 2016 and P96.08 billion in 2017, and will get P103.225 billion next year.
“So lampas one-fourth trillion pesos, or P284.8 billion sa panahon na hindi na renewed ang mandate nila,” Recto said.