Senate approves measure postponing barangay, SK elections to next year

September 20, 2017

The Senate on Wednesday approved on third and final reading a bill postponing the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections from October to May next year.

Senate Bill 1584 was approved with 17 votes, one negative vote by Senator Risa Hontiveros and zero abstention. The bill was authored by Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III and Senator Richard Gordon.

Barangay officials would be allowed to continue exercising their functions in a holdover capacity. The bill was approved without the provision that would allow the president to appoint barangay officials.

Gordon, sponsor of the bill, said the postponement of barangay elections would give the police and military forces ample time to address the problem on drugs and to put an end to the Marawi siege.

In his sponsorship speech, Gordon said the illegal drug trade has become so rampant that the Bureau of Customs was not spared from being used as the port of entry of illegal drugs. He said the incidents involving the killing of minors involved in drugs are signs of the magnitude of the drug problem in the country.

Gordon said elective officials down to the barangay level are involved in illegal drugs and that 49 percent of the barangays are drug-infested – which is enough reason to postpone the barangay elections so the police and the military forces could clean the barangays of the drug menace.

Gordon added he is giving opportunity to the military so they could assure the conduct of clean, orderly and honest barangay elections since majority of the country’s police and military forces are currently assigned in Mindanao to fight terrorist and extremist groups. DMS