EDITORIAL - Wasting P8 billion

For self-promotion billed to taxpayers, the sky’s the limit for the typical politician.

The latest such undertaking is the ongoing rush to postpone yet again the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections set this November, after the BSKE originally set in 2025 was postponed for a year.

In a decision peppered with the word “unconstitutional,” the Supreme Court had stopped in June 2023 the practice started in the Duterte administration of postponing the BSKE and effectively extending the terms of village and youth council officials.

The SC struck down Republic Act 11935, which had postponed the BSKE scheduled on Dec. 5, 2022, but for practical purposes allowed the polls to push through instead in October 2023.

Among other things, the SC pointed out that “the free and meaningful exercise of the right to vote, as protected and guaranteed by the Constitution, requires the holding of genuine periodic elections, which must be held at intervals which are not unduly long, and which ensure that the authority of government continues to be based on the free expression of the will of electors.”

Not surprisingly, lawmakers – many of whom are dynasts with relatives occupying barangay positions or who want to curry favor with their political operators at the grassroots –  found a way of going around the SC prohibition.

Congress has the power to set the regular term of BSK officials. On Aug. 13 last year, President Marcos signed Republic Act 12232, which gave BSK officials a four-year term instead of three and effectively gave the incumbents a one-year term extension by postponing the 2025 BSKE yet again, to Nov. 2 this year.

Not content, the dynasty-packed House of Representatives now wants the BSKE to be postponed again. Not to be outdone, Sen. Francis Escudero filed a counterpart bill, seeking not just a one-year postponement but two years, and proposing to gift the incumbents with a five-year term.

Never mind if the Commission on Elections has informed Congress that of the P19.57-billion budget for this year’s BSKE, some P8 billion has already been spent for the printing of ballots and payment of personnel.

Apart from this “sunk cost” of postponement, what will happen to the rest of the P19.57 billion that is already allotted for the BSKE under the 2026 national budget? Will it be impounded as “savings” in the same way that the government impounded billions from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp., Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. and other government corporations?

Critics have vowed to challenge the proposal, which has been endorsed to the Senate plenary with impressive haste.

Wasting public funds, postponing the BSKE and extending the terms of lawmakers’ relatives and political leaders is a vile habit that must be broken.