By: Dean Enrique BUKO dela Cruz, Jr.
Here we go again. Congress is once again rushing to postpone the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE).
The House of Representatives recently adopted the Senate measure and sent an enrolled bill to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s desk.
Promptly responding to this legislative maneuver, election lawyer Atty. Romulo Macalintal sent a letter to President Marcos urging him to veto the bill.
This feels like pure déjà vu.
The 2025 Legal Pivot: Macalintal v. Senate
To understand how we ended up here, we must look at how the High Court’s posture shifted.
In the earlier Macalintal v. COMELEC (2023) ruling, the Supreme Court declared Republic Act No. 11935 unconstitutional and laid down strict guidelines: postponing an election must be justified by compelling reasons (like a public emergency) and cannot rely on farcical rationales like saving money or “election fatigue.”
However, in the November 2025 consolidated case of Macalintal v. Senate (G.R. No. E-02002), the Supreme Court upheld Republic Act No. 12232. The Court made a critical distinction: Republic Act No. 12232 was not a mere “postponement law,” but a valid term-setting law under Article X, Section 8 of the Constitution, which grants Congress the express power to fix the term of barangay officials. The Court ruled that the strict Macalintal guidelines do not apply to term-setting statutes, treating any resulting delay in elections as an “incidental implementation effect.”
What Is the Current Enrolled Bill About?
The new bill pending on President Marcos’ desk seeks to extend the term of barangay and SK officials to five years, postponing the elections once again to November 2028. Legislators claim this provides stability and aligns terms, but their logic is fundamentally flawed.
Congress can easily lengthen or fix the term of the next set of elected officials to five years without postponing the upcoming elections.
The True Cost of Postponement
Delaying the polls is not a victimless administrative adjustment; it is political maneuvering for quick “pogi points” at a staggering public cost:
₱3 Billion in Sunk Costs: According to Commission on Elections (COMELEC) Chairman George Garcia, out of the ₱8 billion already spent or obligated for voter registration, ballot printing, and preparations, at least ₱3 billion will be completely unrecoverable sunk costs if the elections are deferred.
Disenfranchisement: SK candidates face strict age limits (18 to 24 years old). Pushing the elections to 2028 forces eligible youth out of the running, effectively robbing them of their constitutional right to seek office.
Subversion of the Mandate: Extending incumbents’ stay via legislative holdover acts as an unauthorized legislative appointment, keeping officials in power without fresh consent from their constituents.
A Price Too High for Political Mileage
Why are we burning ₱3 billion in hard-earned taxpayers’ money just so politicians can score cheap political mileage and curry favor with local incumbents?
Public office is a public trust, and sovereignty belongs strictly to the people—not to legislators who treat election dates like a movable feast. Burning ₱3 billion in unrecoverable funds, throwing away months of institutional preparation, and robbing the youth of their democratic turn simply to grant incumbents an unearned reprieve is an offense to every Filipino taxpayer.
If Congress truly wants to reform local governance with longer terms, let them do so prospectively for the next leaders we choose.
President Marcos must stand on the side of democratic accountability and veto this wasteful bill.
*Enrique BUKO dela Cruz, Jr. is the Dean of the College of Law of Baliuag University. He earned his Juris Doctor with honors from UST Manila and his LLM with Distinction from the London Metropolitan University, UK as a Chevening Scholar of the British Council in 2005. He completed an Executive Program on Leadership at the KSG, Harvard University in 2002 and the Future Leaders Program from the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School in 2022.