Amend law first before appointing barangay officials – solon

Amend the law – the only way to allow appointment of barangay officials. CDN FILE PHOTO

The current law does not yet allow President Rodrigo Duterte to appoint the roughly 42,000 barangay chairmen in lieu of elections, according to the chairman of the House committee on suffrage and electoral reforms.

Rep. Sherwin Tugna of the Citizens’ Battle Against Corruption party-list said the Local Government Code mandates that elections be held for the chairmen and councilors (kagawad) of the country’s smallest political units.

“I believe that a certain law has to be amended first. Which one? The Local Government Code,” he said in a radio interview.

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez agreed with Tugna’s view. In a brief text message to the Inquirer, he said that in order to grant the appointive powers to President Duterte, “…we have to amend the Local Government Code.”

Upon the Congress’ resumption on May 2, Tugna said lawmakers would no longer be limited to the legal implications of simply postponing the elections, which has already been deferred from the October 2016 schedule through Republic Act No. 10923.

The said law, which reset the elections to October 2017, simply extended the tenures of incumbent barangay officials in a holdover capacity.

“This would now involve the issue of whether it would be just plain and simple postponement of the elections and [retention of officials in a] holdover capacity,” Tugna said.

“Or would there be an additional [amendment]? That there would be no more holdover capacity, and new barangay officials would be appointed instead?”

If this would be the case, the committee on local government would have to be involved in the deliberations too, Tugna said.

At the same time, Tugna said the onus would be on the potential bill author to justify the grant of appointive powers to the President with data on the illegal drug trade.

It may be recalled that Duterte cited the involvement of barangay officials in the narcotics trade in seeking to replace them with his handpicked appointees.

“If they show that there is sufficient data that… the drug lords have used their money to influence the results of barangay elections… I believe that is a compelling reason provided there is data,” Tugna said.

But, he stressed that the “first preference is for free and open elections,” because it is “only there where the best and the brightest are revealed through fair and square elections.”

In a separate statement, Rep. Edcel Lagman, an opposition lawmaker from the Magnificent Seven bloc, echoed that: “Existing laws, which must be maintained, do not provide for appointment of OICs for elective barangay positions.”

“All barangay elected officials shall serve until their successors are duly elected and qualified, unless meanwhile they have been dismissed for cause,” Lagman said.

It may be recalled that one of Lagman’s fellow Magnificent Seven lawmakers has compared the plan to the situation under the Marcos dictatorship.

Akbayan Rep. Tomasito Villarin said on Friday that barangays became a “machinery to monitor and control the people.” Marcos also used barangay assemblies to ratify the 1973 Constitution, the legal mantle to his dictatorial rule, he said.

“That’s 344,000 people at the beck and call of the President,” Villarin then said. “If barangay officials are involved in drugs, let the people kick them out through the ballot. Give that power to the people not to one person. That’s the essence of democracy.”

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