Comelec gets to keep funds for suspended polls

THE COMMISSION on Elections may use the P6 billion budgeted for the postponed barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan  polls when it pushes through in October next year.

The Comelec though has spent P200 million of the fund intended for the local elections originally set for Oct. 31 but which was reset to 2017.

“We still have enough funds for the 2017 elections from our continuing appropriations; we can still use our 2016 budget,” Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said.

Last week, the Senate and the House of Representatives passed bills deferring the local electoral exercise to October 2017.

The measures have yet to be signed by President Duterte, although he is known to favor postponement, fearing that drug money might be used to fund the campaigns for the smallest local government unit and for youth representatives to the SK.

The P200 million the Comelec spent before ending poll preparations went to the printing of 411,000 official ballots by the National Printing Office in the week before operations were suspended.

House Bill No. 3504, which resets the elections to next year, allows the Comelec to spend the allocation in 2017.

Comelec Chair Andres Bautista told congressmen the fund was “largely intact,” when he presented the poll agency’s proposed 2017 budget totaling P3.3 billion to the House appropriations committee.