With the Senate voting to postpone the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections to May next year, it’s still uncertain to declare that all’s well that ends well as far as the date of this seemingly routine political exercise is concerned.
It’s not like there are big names involved. Filipinos aren’t electing a president, vice president, senators, their member of Congress, nor even their governor, mayor and local legislators.
It’s the barangay officials, whom you may get to see every now and then whenever there’s a barangay and SK election, a community event or whenever one has to register for a community tax certificate.
But whether it be a town or city, barangay and SK officials do play a crucial role since they determine which constitutes a majority in a given council — like, say, the Cebu City Council which will experience a shake-up now that one of the Bando Osmena–Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) allies left the council for an appointment in a national government agency.
If the elections were to be held next month, the BO-PK would move heaven and earth to have their own candidates elected to barangay and SK posts so they can sit in the council, replacing incumbent Councilor Philip Zafra who is also president of the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC).
Zafra is associated with Barug Team Rama which has the pick of who will succeed Councilor Hanz Abella. Abella used to be with Team Rama but left for the BO-PK and is now a sitting commissioner in the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC).
The fact that there were some maneuverings done by BO-PK to ensure that one of their own gets nominated by the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) — under which Team Rama ran in last year’s elections before switching to PDP-Laban — despite BO-PK running in alliance with the Liberal Party (LP) only goes to show what lengths the local administration is willing to go to keep their tenuous majority hold in the council.
As it is, with the Senate and the House of Representatives agreeing to postpone next month’s barangay and SK elections, there will be some small yet no less significant political movement in the country including Cebu City and the province.
Regardless of whether or not President Rodrigo Duterte keeps his word about not insisting on the appointment of barangay officials to replace those he deems to be tied to illegal drugs, there is a lot that can happen between now and next year, specifically May when the barangay and SK elections are supposed to be scheduled.
What is certain is that Filipinos will have plenty of time to choose their own barangay and SK leaders, and they best not take their choices for granted since these officials are the frontliners in delivering services to their constituents and can help shape local government policy in one form or another.
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