THE House of Representatives yesterday approved on third and final reading the measure postponing until next year the scheduled barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections set on December 5, 2022.
An overwhelming 264 lawmakers voted in favor of House Bill No. 4673, or An Act Postponing the 2022 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections, which seeks to amend R.A. No. 9164.
Among those who voted against the measure are the three members of the Makabayan bloc and Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, who insisted that there is no valid and compelling reason to delay the barangay and SK elections.
“Elections are the bedrock of democratic governments. Democracy at the grassroots must be assured by holding regular elections for barangay and SK officials and should not be imperiled by repeated postponements of grassroots elections,” Lagman said.
House majority leader Jose Manuel Dalipe earlier said the Senate has already made a clear commitment that they would pass their counterpart measure to allow the postponement of the barangay elections.
A similar measure was sponsored in the Senate plenary last week. Proposed Senate Bill No. 1306 is now pending on second reading.
Under the House bill, the synchronized barangay and SK polls will be held on the first Monday of December 2023 and three years thereafter.
Those elected during the December 2023 polls will start their terms noontime of January 1, 2024.
Once passed into law, incumbent barangay and SK officials will retain their position on hold over capacity “unless sooner removed or suspended for cause.”
Dalipe said that Speaker Martin Romualdez is supportive of the proposal because this would allow the Commission and Election and the local government units (LGUs) to better prepare for clean and orderly barangay polls and provide the government ample time to apply corrective adjustments to the honoraria of poll workers.
There are more than 40 bills authored by 82 House members seeking to postpone the December polls, including those filed by Rep. Mujiv Hataman of Basilan, Richard Gomez of Leyte and Deputy Speaker Aurelio Gonzales who said the money to be saved from postponement could be used for other purposes, such as for the COVID-19 pandemic response and financial aid to the poor.
BALLOT PRINTING
While lawmakers are rushing to approve the proposed measures, the Comelec yesterday proceeded with its preparations for the BSKE and announced that an average of three million official ballots to be used in the polls are set to be printed by the National Printing Office (NPO) per day beginning today.
In a press briefing after the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement with the NPO, Elections chairman George Garcia said: “The NPO has committed all its personnel and all its available machines so they can complete at least 3 million ballots per day.”
“On the average of 3 million a day, then that’s 90 million ballots in one month. The verification process will take about five days. The ballots are just short so this is doable,” he added.
To note, the Comelec and the NPO shall be printing 67,061,585 ballots for barangay voters, and another 24,457,363 ballots for SK voters.
The poll chief said they would not mind if the ballot printing will exceed for a few days as they have enough buffer days in their timetable.
“We are expecting that by the 2nd week of November, we will be able to start shipping all the ballots and election paraphernalia,” said Garcia.
In printing the official ballots, Garcia said the NPO is looking at using previously procured ballot papers that can account for 20 million ballots.
Similarly, Garcia related that they are looking at using the warehouse facility of the NPO for the BSKE ballots for an additional cost.
“Instead of the ballots still being brought out of the compound of the NPO, they can just be stored here and not in another warehouse,” said Garcia.
SECURITY FEATURES
As part of the improved features of the BSKE ballots, Garcia said it will have security markings similar to those of banknotes produced by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
In particular, he said the official ballots will bear the asymmetric serial numbers, which is a random set of numbers that ascend in size from left to right.
“From small to bigger numbers, that will be an additional security feature. Nobody can just make these ballots. In printing, it is really impossible to have ascending number similar to our money,” said Garcia.
“Only the NPO can print numbers like this and the BSP. That is how secure these ballots that we will be using for the BSKE,” he added.
He also said that the security feature will be used solely for the December 5 poll exercise. — With Gerard Naval
