EARLY last month, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Erwin Garcia appealed to Congress to decide by September whether or not to postpone the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) scheduled for Nov. 2.
Garcia said the Comelec needed a definite answer, since more than half of the P19 billion earmarked for the electoral exercise had already been spent on equipment and logistics. He didn’t want to squander the rest of the funding on a process that would eventually be called off.
If the decision is to postpone the polls, Garcia proposed that it be reset not later than June next year, because Comelec will need enough time to prepare for the presidential elections in 2028.
It is September, less than two months before the scheduled election day, and the fate of the BSKE is still being debated in Congress.
Hands down, the BSKE is the country’s most postponed electoral event. Since 1982, only 10 of the 18 elections were held as scheduled. The first postponement was in 1988, when the polls were pushed back one year. The last was in 2025, when it was reset to Nov. 2 this year.
The excuses for deferment include the need to save funds, issues over term extensions and adjusting timelines.
Why is the BSKE such an expendable exercise? Political patronage is largely cited as a major reason. National politicians tend to look at the village and youth organizations as a potent grassroots force they can exploit. An election could alter this dynamic.
Extending a local official’s term also serves as a reward for being loyal to a national benefactor.
A constitutional loophole allows legislators to reset a BSKE through a simple majority vote, a leeway that favors an entrenched administration.
The “moveable” nature of the BSKE has long been questioned by civic organizations like the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel).
“Democracy lives in the insistence that the ballot be cast on time,” Namfrel underscored in opposing a proposed bill in the House to postpone the Nov. 2 polls.
“Regular, predictable leadership cycles are the ultimate check and balance in Philippine grassroots governance... Each additional delay normalizes the practice of legislating around the electorate rather than submitting to it, and every postponement makes the next one easier to justify,” it said.
Holding local polls on schedule “is not a privilege that Congress may withhold when it finds the timing inconvenient — it is a promise the State owes to every barangay in the country,” it added.
Namfrel is particularly opposed to House Bill 10376, which will move the Nov. 2 polls to 2028.
HB 10376 is just one of several measures calling for shelving the Nov. 2 BSKE. Among the most prominent is HB 10971, which argues that a postponement will provide time to adjust the term for village and youth officials from the current four years to five. The bill has been approved on second reading.
Shifting to a five-year term is also cited by Senate Bill 2387 for resetting the elections. Its main sponsor, Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero, argues that a longer tenure will result in a predictable cycle and reduce the need for Congress to constantly adjust election dates.
Other pro-postponement advocates highlighted the need to conserve resources as the country faces economic volatility due to tensions in the Middle East and the agriculture and infrastructure losses from the recent spate of relentless rain and flooding.
Those who are for pushing through with the Nov. 2 BSKE warn that a postponement would set a dangerous precedent.
Senate President Pro Tempore Vicente “Tito” Sotto III has pushed back at SB 2387, stressing that “fixing the terms of our barangay officials to five years must be balanced with the interest of the voting public to elect a new mandate...”
Noted election lawyer Romulo Macalintal said the Supreme Court had already ruled that extending the terms of holdover village and youth officials was unconstitutional.
The debate over postponing the Nov. 2 BSKE has shown no signs of ebbing soon. The question now is will Congress, which is engrossed in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte and enacting the 2026 national budget, consider the issue urgent enough to deliberate on.
