Comelec sees postponement of SK polls

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has stopped all the bidding processes related to the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) balloting, saying it is confident that the youth council polls will be postponed anew.

Comelec office. FILE PHOTO

Acting Comelec Chair Christian Robert Lim said that the election body has gotten word that the bill rescheduling the balloting was already received by the Office of the President on March 4.

If it would remain unsigned by President Aquino until April 4, the bill would automatically lapse into law, added Lim, who was designated as the temporary head of the Comelec, pending Aquino’s appointment of a permanent chairman.

“Under the Constitution, if the president has not signed for a period of 30 days, it becomes a law,” Lim told reporters in an interview on Friday. “So on April 4, the bill becomes a law if the President does not act on it,” he added.

According to the 1987 Constitution, a proposed measure submitted by Congress will lapse into law if the President does not act on it after 30 days of receipt.

The Comelec official said the election body was certain that the balloting would be rescheduled anew and it has already decided to halt all public-bidding procedures related to it several weeks ago.

“We found out that the bill already reached the Office of the President so we stopped our biddings because we don’t want to incur additional expenses,” disclosed Lim, noting that majority of the services that have been bid out for the SK balloting have already been awarded.

The bill seeks to postpone the SK elections to October 2016. It was originally set for Feb. 21, 2015.

Earlier, the Comelec announced that it was postponing the SK elections to April 25 pending the enactment of the law postponing the elections to 2016.

It had also moved the SK election period from March 26 to May 10 while the filing of certificates of candidacy was scheduled on April 11, 13 and 14 and the campaign period from April 15 to 23.