Comelec warns House against BSKE reset

Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairperson George Garcia urged the House of Representatives to carefully consider bills seeking to postpone the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) scheduled for 2 November, citing a Supreme Court ruling that declared Republic Act 11935 unconstitutional.

During a House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms hearing, Garcia said any postponement measure would likely face scrutiny under the standards set by the high court in Macalintal v Comelec.

“Whoever the proponents of this postponement are should be prepared to defend it before the Supreme Court later, if it is passed, under those very strict guidelines,” he said.

RA 11935 postponed the 5 December 2022 BSKE to the last Monday of October 2023. The Supreme Court later ruled that the law violated the constitutional right to suffrage and was enacted with “patent grave abuse of discretion.”

Garcia noted similarities between the 2022 postponement and the current proposals, particularly efforts to redirect the Comelec budget allocated for the elections to other national concerns.

He said the Supreme Court ruling did not apply to Republic Act 12232 because the law did not directly postpone elections but extended the term of SK officials to four years.

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

While no term-extension proposal is pending in the House, Garcia said a similar measure had been filed in the Senate.

Garcia said the Comelec remains prepared to hold the elections on 2 November. Of the P19-billion budget, P8 billion has been earmarked for election paraphernalia, while the remainder will fund poll workers.

Garcia said the Comelec had printed the ballots, cleaned the voter list and procured election requirements.

He said that if the elections are postponed, he hoped Congress would set a date before the second half of 2027, when preparations for the national and local elections will intensify.

Garcia clarified that the Comelec was neither supporting nor opposing postponement, saying the decision rests with Congress.