EDITORIAL - Eternal postponement

In 2023, the Supreme Court had ruled that the “free and meaningful exercise of the right to vote,” as guaranteed by the Constitution, “requires the holding of honest, genuine, regular, and periodic elections,” which must be held at intervals that are “not unduly long.”

The ruling, which struck down Republic Act 11935 postponing the 2022 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections by a year, also declared as unconstitutional the realignment of the budget allocated for the BSKE for other purposes.

Yet this is exactly what several congressmen are again proposing – to postpone for the nth time the BSKE scheduled this November, ostensibly to save funds that can be used for other purposes in this period of national energy emergency.

The SC had cited in its ruling the “explicit prohibition in the Constitution against any transfer of appropriations.” Lawmakers in that case had also cited the need to save public funds in postponing the BSKE.

Perhaps old habits die hard in the legislature, whose members must be suffering from withdrawal symptoms from the creative fund juggling that produced two of the most corrupt national budgets ever – the General Appropriations Acts of 2024 and 2025.

Many BSK members serve as the grassroots operators of politicians during elections. Postponing the BSKE developed into a bad habit during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte. The SC finally put its foot down through that 2023 ruling.

But with the 2025 elections approaching, the 19th Congress found a way around the prohibition, passing a law that not only postponed the BSKE in 2025 to November this year, but also rewarding BSK officials with a four-year term – longer than the terms of Congress members and local government executives.

Election watchdogs stressed that a law cannot have two principal purposes, but the measure has not faced legal challenge so far.

Now lawmakers want to pander to BSK officials anew, using the fuel crisis as an excuse. A postponement of the BSKE – as the word implies – will merely postpone the expenditure, with the funding already appropriated for it under the GAA for this year.

Every poll postponement, as the Commission on Elections has also pointed out, means bigger expenditures in the long run, and often wastes paraphernalia, time and effort that have gone into the poll preparations.

And yet here we are again, with the political leadership looking for ways of pandering to BSK officials in the middle of one of the worst economic crises to hit the country. Even President Marcos, who signed RA 12232 in August last year, is reportedly willing to study the proposed postponement, resurrecting the habit initiated by his predecessor.