THE 2025 BARANGAY POLLS WILL GO ON!

June 24, 2025 Opinion

Many of my friends in the barangays all yearning for postponement of the barangay elections must frown on this column! It brings “doomsday” news but hey, someone has to break bad news once in awhile. So unless the wind changes in the Palace after I have
submitted to Amianan Editor Thom this Friday this column, here is my ten centavo worth take on the matter. I have it on good authority
na itatago natin sa pangalan na “bubuwit”, that BBM is inclined to veto the recently reconciled bill by the Senate and House of Representatives postponing the scheduled December 1, 2025 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) entitled “An Act Setting the Terms of Office” for barangay officials etc.”

The people’s right to choose their own leaders must be respected but more important the bill, suffers from the same constitutional and
legal flaws as Republic Act No. 11935, which attempted to delay the December 2022 BSKE but was declared unconstitutional by the
Supreme Court in the 2023 case of Macalintal v. Comelec. The bills hid its true intention to postpone the December 1, 2025 elections to the first Monday of November 2026, allowing incumbent barangay officials to continue serving in a holdover capacity —effectively extending their tenure without a public mandate. Worse, the bill actually covers three separate matters: It sets a new term of office for
BSK officials; It postpones the December 2025 elections; and It authorizes holdover appointments of incumbents and extension of their tenure in office.

Even a High School student knows that that a legislative measure must embrace only one subject clearly stated in its title. Section 26, Article VI of the 1987 Constitution states: “(1) Every bill passed by the Congress shall embrace only one subject which shall be expressed in the title thereof.” This is what my political law professor describes as “log-rolling legislation—where a bill misleadingly appears to cover a single issue while concealing unrelated or controversial provisions. ”We elected morons as solons, mea culpa! Don’t get me wrong, Congress can legislate the “term” of office for barangay officials but it cannot extend their “tenure” by postponing elections.

This was the message of the Supreme Court Congress cannot unreasonably and arbitrarily infringe on a constitutional right of the people to choose their leaders, a right that cannot be bypassed by legislative fiat disguised as holdover extensions. As Justice Maria Filomena-Singh in her dissenting opinion stated “election postponement is a direct infringement, if not total abrogation, of the right to vote, in a manner that makes a mockery of the sacred trust reposed in our elected officials by the voters.” In reality, the recent bill is the same dog wearing a different collar. There is no meaningful difference between this reconciled bill and the unconstitional RA 11935. Let’s just go on with the 2025 elections and let the 20th Congress extend your terms, either for 4 or 6 years , which ever you decide. Sigh.