The Commission on Election can no longer conduct any plebiscites from November this year until 2025, its chairperson, George Garcia said on Tuesday, confirming that the push for the People’s Initiative will have a huge implication on the government’s financial resources. 

During the public hearing by the Committee on Electoral Reforms and People’s Participation, Senator Risa Hontiveros cited some local Comelec officials saying that pushing a P.I. plebiscite would likely cost the government at least P23 billion—which is seen to cause a financial crisis to the country. 

“Sang-ayon po ba ang good chair sa statement po na iyon? (Does the good chair agree with that statement?)” Hontiveros asked. 

Garcia replied: “Tama po (It is right). Simply because we cannot divert anymore any of the funds in the position of the Comelec—that is contained in the General Appropriation Act.” 

He said the Comelec was just meagerly given preparatory funding for the conduct of local and national elections set in 2025. 

The Comelec budget also excludes the funding for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Election, he added. 

“There was this Supreme Court decision which mandated the commission, directed the commission to conduct the SK by December of 2025, five months only after the conduct of the 2025 national and local elections,” Garcia said.

He further noted that the Supreme Court’s final decision on the push for the next BSKE election was released only “after the budget has been transmitted by the executive to the legislative department.”

“So napaka laking blessing po samin na naibalik yung P12 billion (So it’s a huge blessing that the P12 billion was returned to us) so we can use that for the preparation of these two elections for 2025,” he said. 

Hontiveros asked again. “If the verification and plebiscite for the P.I. will push through under the Comelec, how will it affect the poll body, since the 2025 elections is nearing?”

Garcia responded that the Comelec is already operating on a “very limited space.”

“This is the opportunity of the Comelec to clarify. We cannot conduct any plebiscite in 2025. That’s a no-no, that’s a negative. We cannot conduct a plebiscite even by November to December of this year,” Garcia stressed. 

“Everyone should be able to understand that when you conduct a plebiscite or even a national, or even a local election, you need such procedural, yun pong mga processes for procurement,” he added. 

Garcia said possible concerns should the P.I. plebiscite push through include the procurement of millions of pens and ballot papers to be used during the voting. 

“Saan po kami kukuha ng millions ng ballpen na yun hindi po pupwede sa PS-DBM (Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management), hindi po nila kaya ‘yun. Paano po kami mag po-procure ng papel para po sa pagpiprint ng balota,” he said.

“You can only do that if the Comelec is able to declare—after a very tedious process—that indeed the 12 percent signatures were had, as far as those who wanted to amend the constitution are concerned, and number 2, is the 3 percent per legislative district,” he added. 

Garcia said the Comelec only has a limited time to conduct any plebiscite. 

“Yung time na pwede lang po kami mag conduct ng plebisito sa kasalukuyan madam chair, your honors, ay October of this year. But, however, ang October po, filing na po tayo ng certificate of candidacy and therefore, magkakasabay na po yung mga trabahong ginagawa ng Comelec, more particularly ‘yung registration of voters nation na we have to start by 12 February up to 30 September of this year,” he noted. 

In the same hearing, Garcia reiterated that there’s no formal petition for the People’s Initiative to change the Charter has been filed to the en banc despite having signature forms forwarded to the local Comelec offices.

“Until now, the papers handed to our local Comelec—these are mere scrap of papers. Wala pa po bisa, wala pa pong kwenta, wala pa pong value, until and unless these documents will be used in a formal petition to be filed with the Commission on Election,” he said. 

“So as far as we are concerned, we did not even look into the entire content of the form. Ang tiningnan lang po natin doon ay numbers and the number of pages,” he added.