Barangay execs warned against 4th term

Commissioner Grace Padaca: Warning for three-termers. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Don’t even think about it.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday warned barangay (village) officials on their third consecutive term not to think about running for one more term in October.

Commissioner Grace Padaca said the Comelec was working with the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) to prevent officials on their third and last term from running again in the barangay elections on Oct. 28.

“We will come up with guidelines on how our election officers will deal with them. In the certificate of candidacy, I think you have to tick a box saying whether or not you’re a third-termer,” Padaca said in an interview.

“In our last en banc meeting, we signed a resolution asking the DILG about that,” she said.

Padaca said that at the last meeting between Comelec and DILG officials, the list of last termers was “85 percent done.”

“The filing of certificates of candidacy is not until October so there is still time (to screen them),” Padaca said, adding that the filing would be from Oct. 15 to 17.

The law on the synchronized barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan election bars barangay officials on their third consecutive term from seeking a fourth one.

In 2010, the DILG issued a list of barangay officials on their last term but Padaca said some officials on the list were not “last termers” but persons whose names were inadvertently included on the list.

“It could be that you just took over [to finish another official’s term] or there are cases where they were suspended so that does not count,” she said.

Padaca also called on the public to be on the lookout for barangay candidates who may have already served three consecutive terms.

“Generally speaking, since we are in 2013, these incumbent officials should have been continuously serving since 2004,” she said.

“But if they have been serving since 1995, maybe we have reason to ask [questions]. I hope the barangay folk will be conscious of this,” she added.