EDITORIAL — ‘Unli’ postponement

With speed as impressive as the railroad of the law creating the Maharlika Investment Fund, Congress and Malacañang passed a law postponing, for the nth time, the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections set this Nov. 2.

This time, the incumbent BSK officials will get not just a one-year extension of their terms, but two, with the next BSKE set in November 2028. This is because they will be benefiting from yet another change in their term of office, from four years to five – longer than the terms of congressmen, local government executives and half of the 24-member Senate.

They might get to stay in office even longer, because President Marcos, in election year 2028, may again go along with Congress in gifting BSK officials with yet another term extension of a year or two, or maybe a decade.

Since the law allows Congress to fix the terms of BSK officials, lawmakers – many of whom have relatives in the barangays, and a number of whom entered politics as barangay officials – have not shied away from giving BSK officials an ever lengthening term.

Opponents of the latest BSKE postponement had suggested a compromise: to make the new five-year term apply to whoever would win this Nov. 2.

There are, after all, thousands of other people who want to have a chance to replace the incumbents and serve in the barangays and youth councils. And surely there are millions of voters who are ready for a change in their BSK officials.

Yet Congress and President Marcos would have none of it.

Among the first bills signed into law by the President was Republic Act 11935, which postponed the BSKE in December 2022 and reset it to the last Monday of October 2023.

Responding to a petition, the Supreme Court struck down RA 11935 as unconstitutional and prohibited the “unduly long” postponement of elections, which the SC said undermined suffrage in a democracy.

For practical purposes, the SC allowed the BSKE to proceed in October 2023, but because of the repeated postponements, ordered the next elections to be held after two years, in 2025.

Last year, Congress and the President found a way to go around the SC prohibition, tacking on the fixing of the BSK term to four years from three, and thus resetting the 2025 BSKE to Nov. 2 this year.

And now here we are, with the latest law published ASAP in the Official Gazette and immediately executory.

Never mind the SC prohibition, and never mind the P8 billion already spent so far by the Commission on Elections in preparation for this year’s vote.

By 2028, some reason will be plucked from the air again – perhaps the Comelec will be tired from the general elections – and the lucky BSK officials will get to keep their posts forever.