Bill moving 2025 BSKE to May 2029, extending brgy, SK execs' terms reaches Senate plenary

A bill seeking to postpone the 2025 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) to May 2029 and extend the terms of local village officials to six years has been sponsored in the Senate plenary.

Senate electoral reforms committee chairperson Imee Marcos sponsored Senate Bill 2816 contained under Committee Report 317 during Tuesday's plenary session.

After the May 2029 BSKE, Marcos said the regular election will be held every six years thereafter.

"With a longer fixed term, the barangay officials and members of the SK will deepen their understanding of both national and local issues, as well as implement their own medium- and long-term initiatives at the barangay level," Marcos said.

Apart from this, the senator said that setting the term of barangay officials and members of the SK will assure that BSKE will never coincide with the national and local elections, ensuring a more focused and effective governance cycle, while giving COMELEC adequate time to ensure peaceful and orderly elections.

"This longer term of six years, which was in fact the original term provided for the barangays previously, will negate the reasons commonly advanced for ad hoc extensions of the terms of barangay and SK much decreed by the Supreme Court decision last year that the term is too short, that there is election fatigue or similar justifications that they felt indeed were not valid," she said.

The last BSKE was held in October 2023 after the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the law that postponed its conduct from the initial schedule of Dec. 5, 2022, to the last Monday of October 2023.

The high court said that the next BSKE shall be held on the first Monday of December 2025 and every three years thereafter, pursuant to Republic Act 11462.

The government asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision, but the appeal was dismissed. — VDV, GMA Integrated News