WITH STILL THREE months to go, the House of Representatives should decide whether or not the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) should go through as scheduled.
Appearing before the hearing called for by the House committee on suffrage and electoral reforms, Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman gave Congress until September to allow the poll body to make necessary adjustments and prevent further wastage of government resources.
“The Comelec is ready to conduct the elections this coming November 2. We are just appealing to you to decide by September,” Garcia said.
He however clarified that Congress still has the last say whether or not to push through with the election, acknowledging a legislative proposal seeking to reset the BSKE amid the Middle East tension-induced economic and domestic crises.
VALID REASONS
San Juan City Rep. Ysabel Zamora, in her capacity as co-author of the House proposal calling for BSKE postponement, said the elections should be moved to a later date to enable the government to first focus on economic recovery.
However, Garcia expressed reservation even as he claimed that the legislative proposal – if approved, will test the “very strict guidelines” that the Supreme Court previously issued.
“We saw that the title [of the bill] is really [for] postponement because of the energy crisis, because of what is happening in the Middle East, and because of what perhaps will be [an increase] in the prices of commodities,” the Comelec chief averred.
“This ground, should the bill be passed by Congress, will be tested against the very strict measure or guidelines issued by the honorable Supreme Court […] And therefore, whoever are the proponents of this postponement should be prepared to defend it to the honorable Supreme Court later […],” he added.
STRICT CONDITIONS
In July 2023, the Supreme Court declared Republic Act 11935 moving the BSKE from its initial schedule of Dec. 5, 2022, to the last Monday of October 2023, as unconstitutional.
While the court recognized the legal practicality and necessity to proceed with the polls in October, the high tribunal found “no legitimate government interest or objective” to support the postponement and that the law “unconstitutionally exceed[ed] the bounds of the Congress’ power to legislate.”
The court also gave circumstances when a postponement can be justified — “public emergency situation” and “election fatigue.”
READY TO RUMBLE
Garcia earlier reported that the poll body had already finished purging the national voters’ list of multiple registrants, as well as the printing of the ballots.
To date, Comelec has already spent P8 billion of the P19 billion funds allocated just for the BSKE slated on November 2.
The rest of the funds would be allocated for teachers’ honoraria (P9 billion), training (P1 billion), and deployment (P1 billion).
Garcia appealed to lawmakers to reset the polls not later than June next year, should they choose to postpone it, “because June 2027 onwards will be critical for us for our preparations for the national and local elections.”
Should the polls be postponed, he said, the Comelec will resume its voter registration drive in September, which would also entail increasing the number of precincts and printing new voters’ lists.
If approved, this would be the second time for the BSKE to be rescheduled.
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