Villanueva seeks postponement of barangay, SK elections

CEBU, Philippines - Senator Joel Villanueva filed a proposal yesterday resetting the upcoming synchronized Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections on October 31 to the last Monday of October 2018.

Villanueva, in his sponsorship speech, said while he believes that the Barangay and SK elections are an opportunity for young people to directly exercise their right to suffrage and influence governance, there is a need to move the schedule.

"But I also believe deeply that holding the Barangay and SK elections this year will cause delays and slow down crucial economic projects of the national government; for one thing, there will be temporary bans and restrictions in several government processes throughout the entire election period," he said in his speech, a copy of which was furnished to The Freeman.

He said that moving the date of the Barangay and SK elections will have more positive than negative effects.

He explained that since voter turnout in the barangay polls is historically low, the postponement will give an opportunity for the Comelec to improve voter turnout in the SK and barangay elections, which is way below Comelec's target of five million new voters.

According to Comelec, there were only 1,035,474 out of three million expected new voters for the SK elections and 785,582 out of two million expected voters for the barangay elections.

The senator added that SK and Barangay polls postponement is a chance for senior high school and college students to be able to register for barangay and SK polls since classes were already ongoing during the 15-day registration period last month.

He added that the upcoming polls which will be manually done would be costly.

Further, Villanueva said that if the elections would push through, there could be power outages in different parts of the country because of a directive for all power plants to be always available during the election period.

There was already a delay in the maintenance shutdown of several power plants due to the May 2016 elections, he said.

The neophyte senator said that the deferment of the polls would give way to the continuing fight against crime and corruption of President Rodrigo Duterte.

"With the general perception that crimes surge during election season in the Philippines, the barangay and SK polls might be used by some to distract the momentum against drugs and criminality," he said.

According to a press release from the Senate, the local government committee headed by Senator Sonny Angara will conduct a public hearing since there are four proposals calling for the deferment of the SK and barangay polls.

Apart from Villanueva, Angara and Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Leila De Lima have also called for the deferment of the two elections. —/ATO (FREEMAN)