MANILA, Philippines — (UPDATE – 1:13 p.m.) President Rodrigo Duterte has signed into law the postponement of the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections originally scheduled for this month.
This was disclosed Wednesday, October 4, by House Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas.
Republic Act No. 10952, which Duterte signed on Monday, October 2, resets the village polls from October 23 to the second Monday of May 2018.
It allows incumbent village officials to retain their positions in a holdover capacity until their replacements can be elected.
Duterte had originally wanted to replace incumbent officials because he claimed many of them are involved in the drug trade.
Deferment must be the last – Recto
Reacting to the signing of the law, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said the second postponement must be the final one, warning another postponement spells “strike 3 against democracy,” and imposes a fiscal cost on taxpayers.
Recto said in a statement, “I am counting on the palabra de honor of Malacañang that this will be the last cancellation.”
Recto stressed the need for regularly changing elective public servants, saying “having expiry dates on elective posts is one of democracy’s greatest virtues.”
Officials from the President down to the barangay captain “have the same employment status: they’re contractual employees elected to fixed terms,” Recto said.
He said the effect of the postponement “is that barangay officials who have lost the trust of their constituents, like those who coddle or are in cahoots with drug lords, are gifted with another year in office.”
Finally, he said, the law deferring the Oct. 23, 2017 elections to the second Monday of May 2018 should be “the last deferral because there is a fiscal cost in cancelling. Every time we reset, we pay a postponement fee, in the hundreds of millions, for activities which must be conducted again.”
The new law carries Recto’s amendment that the amount of P6.09 billion appropriated in RA 10651 and RA 10717 be treated as continuing appropriations that will fund the holding of the barangay elections next May.
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A COPY OF R.A. 10952: