MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is asking Congress to decide by September whether to postpone the Nov. 2 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) so the poll body can adjust its preparations and avoid wasting government resources.
Comelec Chair George Erwin Garcia made the appeal Thursday during a House committee hearing on bills seeking to move the scheduled barangay and youth elections.
“The Comelec is ready to conduct the elections this coming Nov. 2. We are just appealing to you to decide by September,” Garcia told lawmakers.
Several lawmakers have proposed postponing the elections, citing economic and domestic concerns linked to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
San Juan City Rep. Ysabel Zamora, one of the bill authors, said postponing the polls would allow the government to focus on economic recovery.
Garcia warned that any postponement could face legal challenges because the Supreme Court previously set strict guidelines for moving the BSKE.
In July 2023, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional Republic Act No. 11935, which postponed the BSKE from December 2022 to October 2023. The court said Congress must establish a legitimate government interest to justify postponing elections and identified circumstances such as a public emergency and election fatigue as possible grounds.
Garcia said Comelec has already removed multiple registrants from the national voters’ list and printed the BSKE ballots. The agency has spent about P8 billion of its P19 billion allocation for the elections, he said.
The remaining funds include P9 billion for teachers’ honoraria, P1 billion for training and P1 billion for deployment, according to Garcia.
If Congress postpones the elections, Garcia urged lawmakers to schedule them no later than June 2027 because Comelec’s preparations for the national and local elections will become critical from June onward.
The poll body would also resume voter registration in September and prepare new voters’ lists and additional precincts.
Comelec registered more than 5.4 million voter applications during the BSKE registration period from Oct. 20, 2025, to May 18, 2026.
Garcia said the printed ballots could still be reused if the elections are postponed, but markers and indelible ink could expire because they have a one-year shelf life.
The postponement would mark the second rescheduling of the BSKE. The elections originally scheduled for 2022 were moved to 2023, while Congress later reset the next polls from 2025 to 2026.
Garcia said the Nov. 2 elections should proceed as scheduled if Congress does not approve a postponement.
