Postponement of next BSKE sought despite SC ruling

A bill has been filed at the House of Representatives seeking to postpone the December 2025 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections (BSKE) despite a Supreme Court ruling last year that such postponement is illegal.

House Bill (HB) No. 10344, filed by Camarines Sur Representative Luis Villafuerte, seeks to move the conduct of the next BSKE from December 1, 2025 to October 26, 2026, and then every three years thereafter.

According to Villafuerte, conducting the next BSKE on its original schedule would mean a shorter term for the incumbent officials, noting that the last BSKE was held in October last year. 

"This [shortened term] is tantamount to the impairment of the expectations from the incumbents of our electorate’s overall exercise of their right to suffrage," Villafuerte said.

"It diminishes the obligations of the incumbent BSK officials to serve their constituents, and lessens their accountabilities in the exercise of the power vested in them by the people's free choice if they shall serve for only two years," he added.

Villafuerte said that the shortened term will also violate the 1987 Constitutional provision and the 1991 Local Government Code which provide that the term of barangay and youth council officials should be three years long.

Representatives Inno Dy of Isabela, Ernix Dionisio of Manila, and Jude Acidre of Tingog party-list, backed Villafuerte's proposal, noting that the two-year term of those who won in the October 2023 BSKE is not enough to implement government programs that the barangay and youth officials envisioned.

"Two years really is very short because of previous postponements, and it takes some time to grow on the job," Dy, a former barangay captain and former resident of the Liga ng Barangay, said in a press briefing on Thursday. 

"This postponement is also to save government funds, because barangays spend a lot for training whenever there is a new set of elected officials."

Dionisio, for his part, noted that there is already "mudslinging left and right" this early because of the December 2025 BSKE.

"I go around my district all the time, and people are already talking about who will be the rivals for the next barangay elections. The focus is already there, instead of helping the community. There is mudslinging left and right. That is the sad reality of a short term of office," he said.

Acide, meanwhile, said the postponement bill is a way forward given the Supreme Court decision.

"It would be unfair for the elected officials to have a shortened term when they would have prepared for a three-year term," Acidre said.

"The way to move forward is for Congress to discuss the postponement bill and its implications. It’s good that there is already a bill about it," he added.

The Supreme Court declared Republic Act 11935, the law that postponed the holding of the BSKE from their initial schedule of December 5, 2022 to the last Monday of October 2023, as unconstitutional in June 2023. 

In its ruling, the high court said the law violated due process, infringed on the constitutional right of the Filipino people to suffrage; and was enacted in grave abuse of discretion. 

Villafuerte, however, argued that the same SC decision gave "proper recognition of the consequences and effects that cannot be justifiably reversed prior to this ruling."

This ruling, he said, should be interpreted that BSKE postponement remains legal.

He also pointed out that the same ruling mentioned that Congress "is not precluded from further amending RA 9164, as amended, subject to the proper observance of the guidelines herein provided." 

RA 9164 is the Local Government Code, which sets the term of barangay and youth council officials at three years. —KBK, GMA Integrated News