‘Legitimate’ minority won’t block barangay, SK polls postponement

Members of the “legitimate” minority bloc in the House of Representatives on Tuesday said they would not oppose the move to postpone the conduct of barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections to October 23, 2017.

In a press briefing, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said the group of lawmakers who claimed to be the minority bloc would join the majority coalition in supporting the bill as long as the proposed legislation would not call for the abolition of the SK and the kagawad or barangay council.

“As far as the postponement of the barangay and SK elections is concerned, the legitimate eight will have no objection to the postponement, as long as this is spelled out very clearly,” Lagman said.

“There should be no abolition of barangay council as well as the SK. If these parameters are concerned then we’ll vote for the postponement,” he added.

The minority bloc made the statement after Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said the SK should be abolished for being useless as well as the barangay council for not doing their jobs properly and have them replaced with purok leaders.

READ: Alvarez: Abolish SK, barangay councilors

For his part, Ifugao Rep. Teddy Baguilat said the SK should not yet be abolished not when an SK Reform law has been passed in the 16th Congress raising the age of SK officials to 18-24 years old and inserting an anti-political dynasty provision.

READ: Solons laud signing of ‘antipolitical dynasty’ SK law 

Baguilat also opposed the appointment of purok leaders which for him sounded like a dictatorship.

“Hindi maganda na one-man dictatorship na siya na ang bahala na pumili ng mga purok leaders (It’s not good that it’s a one-man dictatorship where he is the one charge of choosing purok leaders). The barangay council is structured in such a way na you have a council, a captain who chairs the council, and you have the council as a collegial body. ‘Yun ang demokrasya (That’s democracy),” Baguilat said.

Lagman said the majority coalition would like to postpone the village elections to next year to synchronize it with a possible election of delegates in case Congress opts for a Constitutional Convention mode of amending the 1987 Constitution to pave the way for a shift to federalism, or with the plebiscite to ratify the amendments in the Charter.

“Another possible reason is that we are going to coincide the postponed barangay elections to some electoral exercise which may be forthcoming, for example, the possible elections of members of a Constitutional Convention,” Lagman said.

“It could coincide with the plebiscite for the approval of the constitutional amendment… They would like to fast track the amendment of the Constitution and the postponement (of the barangay election) to one year is a possible indication,” he added. JE/rga

READ: Village polls may be deferred to 2017 for Con-con, says solon