ZAMBOANGA CITY, Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines — The barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections will surely push through this October, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Erwin Garcia said on Saturday.
“I’m very sure — based on my assessment of the situation and also of the commission en banc — that the barangay and SK elections will push through in October 2023,” Garcia said in Filipino in a chance interview in Bongao town in Tawi-Tawi where he was monitoring the voter registration there.
He said printing the ballots for the October elections was already ongoing and expected to be finished by February.
“That is really early — the earliest in the history of printing ballots. And that’s good so that we are at least prepared,” Garcia said.
In July 2022, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. signed Republic Act No. 11935 postponing the barangay and SK elections to October 2023. It was supposed to have been held on Dec. 5, 2022. Under the new law, it will be held on Oct. 30, 2023, and then every three years after that.
The last barangay and SK elections were held in May 2018. (John Eric Mendoza © Philippine Daily Inquirer)
