Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chair George Garcia on Thursday warned the House of Representatives to carefully consider proposals to postpone the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) scheduled for 2 November, saying any deferment could face scrutiny before the Supreme Court.

During a House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms hearing, Garcia cited the Supreme Court's ruling in Macalintal v. Commission on Elections, which declared Republic Act 11935 unconstitutional.

“Technically, and this is with all due respect, these grounds if approved in Congress will be tested as against the very strict measure or guidelines issued by the honorable Supreme Court, that is where it will be measured,” Garcia said.

“Therefore, whoever are the proponents of this postponement should be prepared to defend it to the honorable Supreme Court later, if it is passed, as against those very strict guidelines,” he added.

RA 11935 postponed the BSKE originally scheduled for 5 December 2022 to the last Monday of October 2023.

The Supreme Court ruled that the law violated the constitutional right to suffrage and found that Congress committed grave abuse of discretion in postponing the elections.

Garcia noted similarities between the reasons cited for the 2022 postponement and some current proposals, particularly calls to redirect Comelec funds toward other government priorities. In 2022, the COVID-19 pandemic was cited, while current proposals have raised the ongoing energy crisis.

Term-fixing vs postponement

Garcia distinguished a direct postponement from legislation fixing the terms of barangay and SK officials.

He cited RA 12232, which extended the terms of barangay and SK officials to four years, saying the measure was treated as a “term-fixing law” rather than a postponement law.

“What I mean is, what happened under 12232 was not postponement, it became what we call as term-fixing law, not a postponement law. Therefore, since it was a term-fixing law, the Macalintal doctrine was not applied,” Garcia said.

Garcia noted that no temporary restraining order was issued against the law.

While no term-fixing proposals are currently pending before the House, Garcia said a similar proposal has been filed in the Senate.

Comelec ‘nine out of 10’ ready

Despite discussions on postponing the BSKE, Garcia said Comelec is prepared to hold the elections as scheduled.

Of the P19 billion allocated to the poll body, Garcia said P8 billion had already been earmarked for election paraphernalia, while the remaining funds would largely cover compensation for teachers serving as election workers.

“The Commission on Elections are prepared to conduct an election on November 2. From a scale of one to ten, we are at a nine when it comes to preparedness. In fact, we have already printed out all the ballots, we finished with cleansing the list of voters, we have procured what needs to be procured,” Garcia said.

Should Congress decide to postpone the polls, Garcia said he hoped the new date would not fall in the second half of 2027 because that period would be crucial to Comelec's preparations for the next national and local elections.

Garcia stressed that Comelec was neither for nor against postponement, saying the decision rests with Congress.

The House committee deferred deliberations on the proposals following suggestions raised by resource persons during the hearing.