Another BBM faux pas: Postponing the BSK election

One of the most serious mistakes of the BBM administration is the unreasonable postponement of the BSKE elections. But having stated thus, we submit that the DDS partisans and the defenders of the vice president are not the proper parties to question this travesty. During the Duterte administration the BSK elections were also postponed three times.

Top election lawyer, Atty. Romulo Macalintal, filed a petition for certiorari and prohibition on Monday, September 28, asking the Supreme Court to strike down the law postponing the November 2026 to November 2028. He challenged the constitutionality of Republic Act 12326, naming the Office of the President, Senate, House of Representatives, and Commission on Elections as respondents.

In a related development, election watchdog Kontra Daya on Monday criticized the postponement of the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) to 2028, saying the move could deprive Filipinos of their right to choose their local leaders. Kontra Daya convenor Danilo Arao called President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s signing of Republic Act No. 12326 “very unwise” and “very ill-advised,” questioning whether the government conducted sufficient studies before extending the terms of incumbent barangay and SK officials.

This column concurs with Macalintal that President BBM committed an indecent haste in approving the law. "It was practically enacted at lightning speed, mabilis pa sa kidlat, or in apparent haste, and with the clear and direct effect of shutting the courthouse doors to Petitioner and similarly situated citizens, leaving them with a dangerously narrow window to study, research, and draft a well-founded petition, considering that the November 2, 2026 BSKE is barely one month and a few days away," Macalintal said. And we agree.

We think that the critics are indeed right that Republic Act 12326 is only five pages long but its impact is long-term in terms of depriving the people’s right of suffrage as well as ensuring that direct services will be really performed at the barangay level. We concur that the president committed grave abuse of discretion in approving RA 12326. Such an act violates the Constitution because it disenfranchises the people and unduly favors incumbent officials, many of whom are non-performing while others are corrupt.

Beyond the postponement itself, Macalintal also challenged the law's transitory provision, which treats the holdover period of incumbent officials as a completed term. He argued that the provision conflates "term of office" with "tenure of office" and effectively amounts to the legislative appointment of holdover officials, contrary to the constitutional requirement that barangay officials be elected. The law, he said, effectively creates a "two-year term extension" without clearly identifying the provision that grants it.

The Supreme Court will find it difficult to deny the soundness of Macalintal's line of reasoning. What Congress and the president did is anti-people, anti-democratic and it deprives the barangay residents their democratic and fundamental right to elect their officials. The law also unduly extends the terms of the incumbents, many of whom have already outlived their relevance and usefulness. There are many more qualified and more deserving candidates and the people are denied the opportunity to choose the better ones.

Indeed, as critics observed, corrupt officials shall last longer in office and there will be no opportunity for people to challenge such officials by fielding new candidates or supporting candidates who would hopefully do the exact opposite of corruption, which is good governance, he said.