Barangay, SK Polls: Tom slams top officials for their late decisions

Mayor Tomas Osmeña criticized top government officials for always making late decisions on major issues such as on whether to continue the barangay and Sanguniang Kabataan elections on October 29, putting the public into quandary.

Until now, the Senate still failed to resolve whether it would support or oppose the move of the House of Representatives to postpone the barangay and SK elections. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is supporting the postponement of the elections and has even certified the House Bill as urgent.

Osmeña said many candidates in the forthcoming synchronized elections have already spent money for the printing of their propaganda materials and that postponing the elections would results to waste of funds.

During his privilege speech before the City Council, Vice Mayor Michael Rama asked for the holding of the barangay and SK elections as scheduled.

Although Osmeña had announced that he will not endorse any candidates, he entertained some of those who wish to run in the city’s 80 barangays.

Comelec provincial supervisor Lionel Marco Castillano has told The Freeman that he hopes the Senate can immediately decide whether to push through with the elections, citing that all materials and paraphernalia were already printed.

“Watch and see lang una ta. Our duty is to implement the Comelec laws,” Castillano said, adding that they would just wait instructions from their Manila office whether to proceed with their paper works.

Some election officers from other towns have already flocked to the Comelec provincial office to get their printed computerized voter’s list.

Many candidates for the barangay posts in the city have been worried because they already spent much money going around their respective barangays.

Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. is against the postponement of barangay elections, saying that hundreds of millions of pesos in taxpayers’ money will go to waste if the elections will be postponed anew.

He said the Comelec has already used up a huge fraction of the P2 billion budget for the barangay and SK elections, including about P300 million for the registration of new voters in the past few months.

The senator said the deferment of the elections will trigger outrage from the people who are overwhelmingly opposed to such a move because this will curtail their right to vote.

The House committee on electoral reforms has recommended the postponement of the October 29 elections to the second Monday of October in 2009.

But Pimentel claimed that some congressmen are deceiving the people by citing the need to put in place the computerization of elections as a major reason for the deferment of the coming elections.

Pimentel said Comelec officials explained that there is no urgency to computerize the barangay and SK elections because the counting and tabulation of votes is confined to the precincts within the barangay.

Radio surveys in Cebu indicate that majority of the populace are against the postponement because it will only benefit the overstaying barangay and SK officials. – Rene U. Borromeo and Garry B. Lao/LPM