Commission on Elections Chairman George Garcia (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)
MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Thursday said it was granted a P2.589-billion contingency fund for the 2023 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections.
Comelec Chairman George Garcia verified the additional funding in response to an inquiry from Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III.
“Comelec was given from the contingent fund by the authority of the President P2.589 billion?” Pimentel asked Garcia during the deliberations on Comelec’s proposed 2024 budget.
Garcia confirmed it and explained that it was received when the barangay and SK elections were moved to October 30, 2023.
“Kasi na-reset po … ‘di ba po dapat nga December 5, 2022 [but was moved to October 30], nag-registration po kami nag-increase ng number of voters kasama SK, ngayon po 91 million kasama ang SK, so nag-increase din po ang number of precincts, number of the electoral boards that will be serving pati ballot boxes, pati overtime,” he explained.
(Because it was reset from December 5, 2022 to October 30, hence we had voter registrations, we registered and increased the number of voters with SK, now it’s 91 million with SK, so we also increase the number of precincts, electoral boards that will be serving as well as ballot boxes and overtime.)
Senator Imee Marcos said that there was already an allotment of P8.411 billion for the barangay and SK elections.
With the new funding, Garcia said the total budget allocated for the elections is now P11 billion.
Around P7 billion will be used to pay for the honorarium and training of electoral board members, while the rest — including the additional funding — will be used to finance other costs.
The official campaign period is from October 19 to 28.