THE Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments on Friday on the petition filed by veteran election lawyer Romulo Macalintal challenging the postponement of the barangay elections until October 2023.
SC spokesperson Brian Keith Hosaka said the decision to conduct oral arguments on the case was reached by the magistrates during their en banc session yesterday.
Hosaka said the en banc also directed respondents Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin to file their respective comments on Macalintal’s plea “not later than 12 noon of Friday, October 21, 2022, through personal service.”
The oral arguments are set at 3 p.m.
In his petition filed on Monday, Macalintal urged the high court to issue an injunction and stop the implementation of Republic Act 11935, or the law postponing the holding of the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections (BSKE) to October 2023, or to observe the status quo prevailing before the enactment of the law, which was signed by President Marcos last week.
With the passage and signing of RA 11935, the terms of all incumbent barangay and SK officials are extended until their successors are elected next year unless they are removed or suspended earlier for a cause.
Subsequent barangay and SK elections will be held every three years.
Macalintal has argued that Congress has no power to postpone the holding of barangay elections as the power to defer the holding of elections lies with the poll body, as stated under Section 5 of the Omnibus Election Code.
Meanwhile, Elections chairperson George Garcia yesterday said the Comelec has cut down its request for an additional budget of P10 billion for the October 2023 BSKE to only P2.7 billion.
The original budget for the BSKE, if it is held in December this year, is P8 billion. The poll body has requested Congress to add P10 billion to the amount if the elections is moved to next year.
In an interview with reporters, Garcia said: “From P10 billion, we found a way to reduce the amount. We actually reached P4 billion for the additional funds we are requesting.”
“Up until late yesterday afternoon, when we submitted the documents to the Senate, we were able to reduce it further to P2.7 billion to P2.8 billion,” he added.
Doing so, he stressed, would mean that they will have to sacrifice some expenditures originally planned by the Comelec, including having more polling precincts and additional election supplies and paraphernalia.
“Of course, there were sacrifices made. We will just increase the number of voters per precinct, and forego purchasing some supplies we will be using,” said the poll chief.
“We did all these so that we can reduce to P2.7 billion to P2.8 billion the additional budget we were requesting for the BSKE,” added Garcia.
Last Monday, the Senate Finance Committee suspended its deliberations on the proposed 2023 budget of the poll body after poll officials failed to provide documents showing the breakdown of additional expenses for the holding of the BSKE next year. — With Gerard Naval
