Comelec: No funds wasted despite Barangay, SK polls postponement

Atty. Lionel Marco Castillano, Cebu Provincial Election Supervisor

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The postponement of the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections (BSKE) to December 2022 will give the Commission on Elections (Comelec) more than enough time to devise measures that will make the next scheduled polls more transparent and efficient, said Comelec Cebu Provincial Election Supervisor Lionel Marco Castillano.

While they do so, Castillano said that they will also reopen voter registrations during the first quarter of 2020.  This will continue until the end of year 2021.

Registration,  Castillano said, will cater not only to new voters in the 2022 barangay and SK elections but also those who will be voting for the first time in the May 2022 presidential election.

On Tuesday, December 3, President Rodrigo Duterte signed the law for the postponement the BSKE from May 11, 2020 to December 5, 2022.

Read: Duterte signs law deferring 2020 barangay, SK polls to Dec 2022

Castillano said that while they already started with their election preparations, a postponement of the BSKE will not result to wastage of government funds.

“In the first place, walay nasayang nga kwarta sa gobyerno because although we (already) started with the procurement process, wala man mi mag award. We were already informed beforehand than the Congress would postpone it (the BSKE),” Castillano said.

The national government’s decision to remove the P6 billion BSKE budget in the 2020 allocation was another indication of its postponement, he added.

In his State of the Nation Address which he delivered in July, President Rodrigo Duterte had told Congress to move the BSKE from May 2020 to 2022 in order to fix the “truncated” terms of the incumbent barangay officials. / dcb