Comelec: BSKE preps to continue amid House bill passage
Commission on Elections chair George Garcia. INQUIRER.net / NOY MORCOSO
MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will continue its preparations for the 2025 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) amid the passage of the bill in the House of Representatives seeking to extend the term of elected officials under the BSKE system.
Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia made this comment a day after the lower chamber approved on third and final reading House Bill No. 11287, where the next BSKE will be held by the second Monday of May 2029, while elected barangay officials will serve for a six-year term instead of three years.
READ: Bill extending term of barangay execs approved on third reading
“In the meantime, we don’t let developments like that in the Congress affect our preparations for the Barangay and SK Elections,” Garcia told reporters in Filipino during an online interview.
Garcia said that the Comelec is monitoring the developments in the Senate if the upper chamber will adopt the version of the House or it will forward its own version of recommending the extension of barangay officials by four years.
He added that the poll body is starting the procurement process of some election materials such as indelible ink and ballot boxes. He also shared that the voter registration scheduled on July 1 to July 11, 2025 will continue even if the BSKE will be postponed or not.
Further, Garcia also noted that depending their preparation on the fate of the approved bill on the lower chamber will be difficult.
“The damage might be more severe if we just wait instead of preparing. We haven’t technically spent any public funds,” Garcia said mostly in Filipino.
Garcia previously said that the 2025 BSKE will be fully manual, with a P11 billion budget allocated for the whole conduct of the elections.
Procurement matters
When asked what will happen if the BSKE is postponed amid the process of Comelec spending funds for its preparations, Garcia said that it depends on the status of awarding of bidders.
“For the procurement process of other materials, as long as we haven’t awarded the winner of [bidding], there will be no damage whether to the Comelec or the private suppliers,” Garcia noted in Filipino.
READ: Comelec sets voter registration period from July 1-11, 2025
He also said that there will not be much of a problem as long as the poll body has not started printing ballots for the elections.
He shared that the poll body needs to start the procurement process as it usually takes two to three months, depending if there will be failure of bidding.
“We are avoiding that. That’s why it is better if we prepare early, so if there will be problems, we can easily amend them,” he stated. /jpv
