Barangay officials' term of office

The situation is worse in the SK. From 2014 to the first half of 2018, no SK official has held office. This was after Congress passed Republic Act No. 10832 in 2013 to push back the elections but let the terms of then SK officials expire as scheduled, leaving their positions vacant.

Lawmakers have cited varying reasons each time they voted to postpone an election. The pandemic was one. In 2002, Congress also wanted to synchronize the barangay and SK polls for efficiency after years of holding them separately. "These are valid reasons. But cutting costs is not. If it was, then why would we even conduct elections every three years?" Michael Henry Yusingco, a senior research fellow at Ateneo Policy Center, said.

This time, lawmakers are saying it will be too expensive to conduct an election with high inflation raising the prices of basic commodities and thus election-related costs. But the same Congress already allocated an additional P9 billion in funding to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) last year to cover the salaries of teachers as election staff, and the Comelec has not indicated it is short of funds. On the contrary, the agency has said it is on track with its election preparations.

Not only have legislators moved elections, they have also revised the terms of office of barangay and SK officials numerous times. A bill approved on second reading at the Senate is just another example of this: the proposed law would "fix" barangay and SK leaders' terms of office to five years from four currently. That is even if the adjustment from three to four was just made last year.

Hence, in practice, terms are not really fixed. Barangay officers have often governed longer than the terms they're elected to because elections were delayed. In fact, since 1995, only three sets of barangay and SK officials actually served their full term that were never extended.

"Lawmakers seem to be playing with their rights. It also downplays their positions," Jean Franco, a political scientist at University of the Philippines, said. "This looks like they see SK and barangay leaders as mere pawns rather than agents of change and governance in the grassroots."

In the end, voters are at the losing end of election postponements, Yusingco said. Admittedly, barangays and the SK barely receive the public scrutiny that national positions do, but these small localities are often the first in line in assisting the public during the hard times. For instance, at the height of pandemic lockdowns, barangays were tapped to quickly locate and distribute cash aid to beneficiaries.

Regardless of election schedule, the good news is majority of Filipino voters remain enthusiastic to vote for new leaders. That said, there are signs that long gaps between polls are dampening the mood. This is obvious specifically in the SK where voter turnout has historically been higher than that in presidential and midterm elections before 2018. That year, turnout plunged to a record-low of 65.5% from a peak of 90.5% the previous election. There was an eight-year gap between the two polls.

Voter turnout did recover in 2023, but it remains to be seen whether that would continue given the planned impending delay. That same year, the Supreme Court ruled that postponing barangay and SK elections is unconstitutional without a "compelling" and "substantial" reason. The court specified a criteria that makes election delays acceptable, including a "public emergency."

Despite that ruling, Congress still enacted another law that delayed the barangay and SK elections scheduled last year to Nov. 2026 and now plans to push that date back further.

"The only way is through public pressure... If Filipinos see the barangay as a forum where they can influence governance, then they would likely fight any attempt by lawmakers to postpone the election," Yusingco, a lawyer, said.

"But the public is generally apathetic to this matter because they don't know how valuable the barangay is to improve politics and governance. And the reality is, only the people can stop lawmakers from disobeying the [Supreme Court] in this regard," he added. Prinz Magtulis