Caguioa questions Supreme Court ruling upholding BSKE postponement

Supreme Court Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa has criticized the high court majority's decision to uphold the constitutionality of the law postponing the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) to November 2028, warning that repeated election delays undermine judicial credibility and the public's constitutional right to vote.

Caguioa issued the dissenting opinion in Romulo B. Macalintal v. Office of the President, et al. (G.R. No. E-08557), in which the Supreme Court en banc upheld Republic Act No. 12326.

The law moves the next BSKE to November 2028 and extends the term of barangay and youth officials to five years.

"When the Court, in the 2025 Macalintal case, upheld the constitutionality of Republic Act No. 12232, I cautioned that the deferral of the BSKE had crossed a clear constitutional line," Caguioa wrote. "Barely a year later, that line has been crossed once more."

He argued that accepting Congress' authority to set officials' terms as justification for the repeated changes effectively weakens constitutional limits on election postponements.

Caguioa also warned that repeated delays place the burden on voters and risk creating the public perception that the judiciary is "unwarrantedly bending its knees to the powers that be."

The majority maintained that adjusting election schedules is an incidental consequence of changing local officials' term lengths under Article X, Section 8 of the Constitution.

The dissenting view, however, argued that extending the terms of incumbent officials without a fresh electoral mandate undermines democratic accountability and constitutional protections.

The latest dispute follows previous legislative changes to the BSKE schedule.

In 2022, Congress postponed the December elections to October 2023. In the landmark Macalintal v. COMELEC ruling, the Supreme Court declared the postponement unconstitutional and set criteria requiring future election delays to be supported by compelling, substantial and important state reasons.

In 2025, Republic Act No. 12232 extended barangay and youth officials' terms to four years and moved the elections scheduled for December 2025 to November 2026. The Supreme Court dismissed early challenges to the measure, distinguishing a permanent change in term length from a one-time election postponement.

On 24 September 2026, Congress enacted RA 12326, extending the terms further to five years and moving the next BSKE to November 2028.

Following the Supreme Court's ruling, the Commission on Elections said it would proceed with preparations for the November 2028 polls.