Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan officials would stay in their posts for five years rather than four under a bill that cleared the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
House Bill 10971 passed on a 211-13 vote, with one lawmaker abstaining. Beyond stretching the term of office, the legislation would push the next barangay and SK elections to 2028. Those polls had been set for this year.
Among the 13 who rejected the measure was Kabataan party-list Rep. Renee Co, the House assistant minority leader, who cast it as a mechanism for entrenching political patronage.
Co, a lawyer, argued that the courts have set a high bar for delaying any vote. “The Supreme Court had said that postponement of elections needs a compelling governmental interest, like protecting the right to suffrage, and a real emergency. The law giving them a four-year term is not even a year old, and yet here we are extending it again,” she said. Her reference was to the existing statute that moved the terms of barangay and SK officials from three years to four.
By her reading, none of that threshold has been met. “This makes this bill, for me, without basis and unconstitutional,” Co said.
