A Senate panel approved legislation on Monday to establish a fixed term for local leaders, a move that would effectively postpone the upcoming Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) originally set for November 2026.
Senate Committee on Local Government chairperson Francis “Chiz” Escudero defended Senate Bill No. 2387, which seeks to fix the terms of barangay and SK officials from four to five years.
Escudero emphasized that the primary intent is governance stability rather than a simple term extension.
“The natural effect will, of course, be to postpone the upcoming election, but the subject matter of this bill is fixing the term,” Escudero said, adding that a fixed five-year cycle breaks the pattern of frequent congressional postponements and prevents local polls from overlapping with national elections.
Concurrently, Senator Imee Marcos authored a separate proposal seeking to shift the election date to October 2027, highlighting that the current November 2026 schedule falls on All Souls’ Day and places a financial travel burden on voters during peak holiday traffic.
Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Erwin Garcia noted that Congress holds the sole authority over term-setting.
Garcia revealed that while Comelec has already spent or obligated approximately ₱8 billion of its ₱19.57 billion allocation—with roughly ₱3 billion considered unrecoverable sunk costs—the majority of printed materials, including ₱2.4 billion worth of ballots, can still be reused in a deferred election.
Comelec urged lawmakers to finalize their decision by mid-September to allow proper operational adjustments.
The proposed deferment faces resistance from electoral watchdogs.
Representatives from the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) and the Legal Network for Truthful Elections (LENTE) expressed opposition during the hearing, arguing that postponing scheduled elections grants incumbents an unauthorized holdover period and infringes on public suffrage rights.
