MANILA – To prevent the repeated postponement of barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections, Senate President Pro Temporate Ralph Recto has proposed a longer term for barangay officials.
Recto made the call as the Senate is set to pass on third and final reading a bill postponing the barangay and SK polls from May next year to Dec. 5, 2022.
Recto said in a statement over the weekend that his proposed Senate measure has its “pros and cons,” but he stressed the “habit” of scrapping barangay polls must be scrapped.
“Admittedly, this proposal has its pros and cons; the bottom line is that in governance, whatever the office, a shorter term for a bad official is too long, while a longer term for a good official is too short,” Recto said.
“The important thing is that we should now begin looking into a longer term for barangay officials, in the hope that its length would serve as a deterrent to schemes to postpone elections,” he added.
Recto also pointed out that if not for his proposal, the next presidents after President Rodrigo Duterte could possibly “succumb to the national bad habit of scrapping barangay polls.”
“We have postponed the barangay elections six times since 1988. The proposed scrapping of the one scheduled in May 2020 will be the 7th. If it pushes through, it will be the 3rd under the Duterte administration, and the first three-peat of its kind in history,” Recto said.
“That was the refrain in 1988, 1989, 2002, 2005, 2016, and 2017. Ang never again naging let me try again,” he added. “The result is an elastic term of office for our barangay officials, longer than what they should get.”/PN
