MANILA, Philippines — Veteran election lawyer Romulo Macalintal has urged President Marcos to veto the enrolled bill postponing the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) set for Nov. 2, saying it violates the constitutional right of suffrage.
In a letter-petition dated Sept. 17 addressed to Marcos, Macalintal said that postponing the elections yet again and extending the terms of incumbent barangay and SK officials would effectively deprive voters of the right to choose their grassroots leaders.
Macalintal, who has previously challenged election-related issues before the Supreme Court, also sought a face-to-face meeting with the President and his legal advisers to present his objections to the bill.
“While this measure attempts to bypass settled Supreme Court doctrines through semantic wordplay, its true effect is undeniable: the unconstitutional postponement of an imminent election and the forced extension of incumbent tenures without a fresh mandate from the people,” he said.
READ: House adopts Senate BSKE postponement bill
The House of Representatives on Wednesday adopted Senate Bill 2387, which seeks to extend the terms of barangay and SK officials from four to five years.
It also moves the elections set on Nov. 2 this year to Nov. 13, 2028, six months after the May 8 national elections.
The move of the House eliminated the need for both chambers to convene a bilateral conference committee to reconcile the differences in their respective versions.
The enrolled bill is to be forwarded to Marcos for his signature. He can either approve or veto it, or allow it to lapse into law after 30 days.
READ: Comelec to Congress: Decide on fate of 2026 barangay, SK polls by September
Macalintal, meanwhile, questioned the justification of the Congress for canceling the BSKE for the second time.
“Under binding jurisprudence, election postponement is a strict exception that must rest on substantial, compelling reasons grounded in objective criteria such as genuine public emergencies or force majeure,” he said.
No valid reason
According to Macalintal, legislative records of the enrolled bill showed a “total vacuum of empirical study or rational deliberation.”
The alleged oil crisis, foreign wars and funding concerns that were raised during congressional deliberations, he argued, failed to meet the constitutional standards for disrupting a scheduled election.
Macalintal also pointed to the declaration of the Commission on Elections that it was ready to conduct the BSKE on Nov. 2, with ballots already printed and about P8 billion expended.
The BSKE was originally scheduled on Dec. 1, 2025 but it was moved to Nov. 2, 2026 after Marcos signed into law Republic Act No. 12232 in August last year, for the government to focus on the first-ever Bangsamoro parliamentary elections.
The law also extended the term of barangay and SK officials to four years from three years under the Local Government Code.
“The effectiveness of the four-year term under RA 12232 has not even been tested, yet Congress seeks to extend this term to five years without any valid reason or ground,” Macalintal said.
He noted that opposition to the issue, which includes his and that of election watchdogs, was never heard by Congress as “only barangay officials who naturally supported the measure to extend their tenure were invited.” /cb
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