BEHIND THE SCENES

Scheduling SK barangay polls
Alfred P. Dizon

Officials who are grooming their sons and daughters as future politicians and aspiring little kings of barangays could now implement their battle plans even as the debate rages whether barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections scheduled next month would push through.

Several House members opposed on Sept. 5 the proposed postponement of the elections but a lot of things could still happen and derail the polls. I got an e-mail on sentiments of some congressional representatives on the issue.
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According to Nueva Ecija Rep. Eduardo Nonato Joson, deferring the elections again could cause “political instability and civil unrest” as voters already want to replace their village and youth leaders. Well and good as some barangay officials have become abusive like those in a barangay with only 30 voters along Session in Baguio.

The proposed new election date -- May 2009, is just about a year away from the 2010 presidential elections and this could prompt some presidential aspirants to fund candidates for barangay posts in preparation for 2010, according to Joson.

Rep. Marc Douglas Cagas said postponing the elections again would be a “shameful act” on the part of the House. If the village balloting is deferred again, Cagas said, and the term of village officials is extended anew, then “everybody’s terms, including those of the President, governors, justices, commissioners, and generals, should be extended.”
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Another House member, Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan of the party-list group Gabriela, said postponement of the elections was “tantamount to disenfranchising millions of voters. This denies them their right to replace erring barangay officials.” Ilagan, a member of the committee on suffrage, was quoted as having refused to sign the committee report recommending the elections’ postponement.

Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr., committee chairman, said it was the sentiment of some members of the House to defer barangay and SK polls. One of those who sought the poll deferment was Cebu Rep. Eduardo Gullas, who said the nation just held a national election last May and holding another national voting in five months “could put considerable upward pressure on interest rates and spoil the country’s financial and economic recovery.”
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Gullas, however, proposed that the combined barangay and SK elections be moved to the second Monday of October next year, and not May 2009, from Oct. 29 this year.

“We do not have to court higher inflation now, considering that we continue to face the uncontrolled risk of potentially higher inflation should oil and other global commodity prices continue to advance,” he said.

He said lower inflation and the strong peso have enabled the authorities to keep interest rates low, and to sustain economic and employment growth. He added the Comelec, after spending billions for last May’s elections, is expected to spend up to P3.3 billion for the October polls.

“But this is not just about public spending, although P3.3 billion not spent is definitely a lot of money saved for the national treasury. This is also about spending by the aspirants that can easily reach several billions of pesos,” he said. “Assuming the October election-related spending amounts to a modest P200,000 per barangay – and we have more than 40,000 barangays – this can easily translate to an extra P8 billion in the system.”

This is on top of the billions spent in last May’s balloting that are already in the system and might have pushed inflation up, Gullas said.
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Mandaluyong City Mayor Benjamin “Benhur” Abalos was also in favor of the move to defer the SK polls but not the barangay elections. Abalos, president of the League of Cities of the Philippines, said there is a need to review the premise of the SK elections as a recent survey showed that a number of candidates opt to run because of the salary that they will be getting and not because they want to serve the public.
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Earlier, as the Comelec said it will continue its preparations for the barangay and SK polls despite the approval by the committee on suffrage and electoral reforms of the House of Representatives of the consolidated bill postponing for the third time the election of village officials from Oct. 29 to the second Monday of May 2008.

The Comelec, led by Chairman Benjamin S. Abalos Sr., said the bill as approved by the House committee headed by Rep. Locsin Jr. (PDP-Laban, Makati City) has still a long way to go until it becomes final and executory.

The bill, postponing the election of village officials by another two years, has to be approved by the Senate and then submitted to the President for approval.
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When the village polls were postponed from 2005 to Oct. 29, 2007, the reason advanced by the House committee on suffrage and electoral reforms was lack of funds.

But since the amount of P2.8 billion is provided in 2007 national budget and a big part of this amount was already released by the Department of Budget and Management as revealed by DBM Secretary Rolando Andaya during the recent “Meet the Press” forum of the National Press Club, Locsin looked for another reason and this time he said, it is best to postpone this year’s elections because it is coming too close to the recent national and local elections.
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The postponement, as proposed by Locsin and other House members, was strongly opposed by a group of lawyers and leaders of non-government organizations saying it was tantamount to depriving the country’s more 28 million registered voters of their right to vote for village officials.

Aspirants and their supporters better keep their fingers crossed on whether elections would push through as this country is known for having many magicians.