WHILE the decision of the Supreme Court (SC) did not affect their preparations for the October 2023 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE), the Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday said the High Court’s ruling may alter their preparations for 2025.
In a televised public briefing, Comelec chairman George Garcia said changes will have to be made as far as their preparations for the year 2025 is concerned considering there will be two elections to be conducted in the same year.
“On the part of the Comelec, it will be a more difficult preparation for us because there will be two elections we will be conducting in 2025, the May national and local elections and the December barangay and SK elections,” said Garcia.
“We must have careful planning on this. We were, of course, planning for the May 2025 elections… Then came the ruling of the SC,” he added.
On late Tuesday, the SC declared as unconstitutional the law postponing the BSKE from December 5, 2022 to the last Monday of October 2023.
The SC said, though, that the October 2023 BSKE shall proceed but ordered that the succeeding barangay and youth elections be held on the first Monday of December 2025.
Garcia said one of the expected changes is on whether the December 2025 BSKE will be using the manual or automated system of voting.
It should be noted that all previous BSKEs have been held using the manual system of voting.
“From the point of view of planning, it would appear to be a better decision to automate the December 2025 BSKE since we will use the automated system in the May 2025 national and local polls,” Garcia said, adding: “We need to decide immediately is the BSKE in 2025 will be automated or not.”
The Comelec is set to pilot test the automated election system in three barangays in the Philippines during the October polls.
The pilot testing is set in Barangays Zone II Poblacion and Paliparan III in Dasmariñas City in Cavite, and in Barangay Pasong Tamo in the sixth district of Quezon City.
Likewise, Garcia said the Comelec is looking to print the additional 1.3 million official ballots to be used in the October elections next month.
“We can already push through with the printing of the 1.3 million additional ballots this July. It will only take 1 week to print them, including verification,” Garcia said.
The 1.3 million additional ballots are for the registered voters who applied from December 12, 2022 until January 31, 2023.
He said the ballot printing will come after the Commission was able to cleanse the voters’ list.
“We didn’t print these ballots immediately because we waited for the removal of multiple and double registrants,” explained Garcia.
Last March, the Comelec already completed the printing of the 90,613,426 official ballots for the barangay and youth polls. These include the 66,973,949 barangay ballots and 23,639,477 SK ballots.
Meanwhile, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) said the SC ruling on the unconstitutionality of the law postponing the BSKE from December 2022 to October 2023 must serve as a lesson to lawmakers.
“Congress will now have some hesitation in postponing the next scheduled barangay and SK elections,” said PPCRV national coordinator Dr. Arwin Serrano in a radio interview.
The High Court has said that the Philippine Constitution requires the holding of “genuine periodic elections,” which must be held at intervals that are not “unduly long”.
But the PPCRV believes it would have been better if the SC ruling came out earlier.
“It’s moot and academic now since the date that will be followed will be the one wanted by the two chambers of Congress, which is October 30,” said the PPCRV official.
“Hopefully, in the next cases brought before the Supreme Court, they will be acted upon immediately,” added Serrano.
