More than 91 million Filipino registered voters are eligible to participate in today’s Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE). There are a total of 67,839,700 registered voters for the barangay elections, and 23,254,129 registered voters for the Sangguniang Kabataan elections.
The right to vote is the cornerstone of a democracy. Sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them. The people express their sovereign will by voting in elections. In a democracy, those who receive the highest number of votes are elected to serve a fixed term of office. Those who do not vote forego their opportunity to choose who will run the government at the national and local levels.
The last BSKE was held in 2018. Elections scheduled in 2021 were postponed by Congress to 2022. Then Congress passed another law, Republic Act 11935, postponing anew the holding of such elections to October 30, 2023. A group of lawyers assailed the constitutionality of this law. The Supreme Court ruled in their favor last June and denied the Solicitor General’s motion for reconsideration last Oct. 24.
As explained by the Supreme Court Public Information Office, the term of office of the sitting BSK officials shall be deemed to have ended on Dec. 31, 2022, following the provisions of RA 11462, the law impliedly repealed by RA 11935. Hence, the actual tenure of those who will be declared winners in today’s elections would only be for slightly more than two years.
The Supreme Court ruled that the right of suffrage requires the holding of honest, genuine, regular, and
periodic elections. Thus, postponement of elections is the exception. It rejected the government’s justification seeking the realignment of the budget allocation of the Commission on Elections for the 2022 BSKE to the Executive for the latter’s use in its projects as “this cannot be done without violating the explicit prohibition in the Constitution against any transfer of appropriations,” and that such move unconstitutionally and arbitrarily overreaches the exercise of the rights of suffrage, liberty, and expression. Hence, the Supreme Court decision emphatically declared “that the free and meaningful exercise of the right to vote, as protected and guaranteed by the Constitution, requires the holding of genuine periodic elections which must be held at intervals which are not unduly long, and which ensure that the authority of government continues to be based on the free expression of the will of electors.”
The BSKE represents the expression of democratic will at the grassroots. The barangay is the basic unit of governance. The Sangguniang Kabataan provides the Filipino youth with the opportunity to participate in crafting public policy.