The most ridiculous political plot twist to hit the headlines last week was the filing of bills by several lawmakers seeking to delay the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) and Barangay elections yet again to either 2027 or 2028. Their most inventive excuse so far? The lingering “energy emergency” declared by President Marcos in March amid Middle East turmoil sparked by the US-Iran war. Apparently, bombs may be falling thousands of miles away, but somehow it is Philippine ballot boxes that need to take cover.

This postponement bid becomes even more absurd considering the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has already printed the ballots. An election originally set for Dec. 1, 2025, was deferred to Nov. 2, 2026—and now lawmakers in both chambers want to kick the can down the road to 2027 or even November 2028. That would potentially push the local polls beyond the 2028 presidential election itself. Given this trajectory, the question is no longer when Filipinos will vote, but whether politicians can keep inventing reasons to prevent them from doing so.

Let’s not kid ourselves: most global economies have long stopped waiting for the Middle East crisis to pass. They absorbed the shock, adjusted strategies, picked up the pieces, and moved toward economic and socio-political normalcy. Only in the Philippines does an "energy emergency" seem to enjoy a political shelf life longer than the crisis itself.

Speaking of elections, the rest of the world has largely refused to let the crisis become an excuse to pause democracy: countries with scheduled polls went ahead with their electoral processes. The sole stark exception was Lebanon, which postponed its May 2026 parliamentary elections to May 2028—an understandable decision given the country was caught in the crossfire of direct military strikes.

The distinction is clear: if bombs are falling on your territory, postponing an election is a matter of physical survival; if fuel prices are simply rising at the pumps, that is an entirely different argument.

Globally, democratic processes carried on even as war, chaos, and soaring fuel prices rattled markets. Colombia held its congressional elections in March—at the peak of the initial US-Iran conflict and oil price shock—and proceeded with its presidential election in May. Vietnam held its National Assembly elections, Slovenia conducted parliamentary polls, and the Republic of Congo ran its presidential election—all in March. The takeaway is obvious: in most parts of the world, a crisis is something a government manages while democracy continues uninterrupted. From April to August, several other nations similarly held parliamentary and presidential elections, including Peru, Benin, the Bahamas, Cyprus, Armenia, and Zambia.

Is the Philippines really planning to demonstrate to the world that—on top of its unresolved flood-control corruption scandal—its political institutions are so fragile that it must postpone hyper-local barangay elections due to high fuel prices? The Middle East crisis drove oil prices higher globally; this is not a uniquely Filipino burden.

If every country is confronting the exact same geopolitical jolt, what are our politicians doing that leaves the Philippines looking so incapable of handling it?

It is a welcome move that the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) has drawn a hard line against these proposals. NAMFREL rightly reminded those in power that predictable leadership cycles are not a bureaucratic luxury—they are the ultimate grassroots check against political impunity, instability, and the temptation to bend democracy whenever it becomes politically convenient.

Politicians must realize that geopolitical shocks are a chronic feature of doing business—especially in oil and gas, where commodities are traded across borders and markets react constantly to wars, sanctions, conflicts, and supply disruptions. None of this is novel. What matters is whether a government is prepared to manage market turbulence.

Admittedly, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz sent severe shockwaves through world economies because that critical energy chokepoint sits at the heart of the global oil trade. But the entire international energy market felt that pressure, not just the Philippines.

Logically, the real differentiator is how a government responds. While many world leaders moved to cushion the shock by diversifying energy supplies, strengthening domestic infrastructure, and strategically planning for disruptions, the Philippines’ primary response was declaring a year-long national emergency—a striking admission of how ill-prepared we were to manage a crisis.

The US-Iran war is hardly the first geopolitical tremor to shake global oil markets. The Russia-Ukraine war sent crude prices soaring past $139 a barrel, while the Iraq War brought its own wave of disruption. Perhaps the most revealing lesson came in July 2008, when oil hit a record $147 a barrel without a major war driving the spike. The culprit was booming demand from China and India, whose rapid economic expansions put unprecedented pressure on global energy supplies.

The core takeaway: oil prices do not react exclusively to battlefields. They move whenever geopolitics, economic growth, supply constraints, and the world’s appetite for energy collide. Governments that blame every price shock on war are ignoring how global energy markets actually work.

If Philippine politicians are genuinely concerned about the logistics costs of running the SK and Barangay elections, they should consider this: the government, through the Department of Energy (DOE) and the state-run Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC), was allocated a ₱20-billion budget for emergency fuel procurement of up to 2.0 million barrels (roughly 318 million liters).

Based on the DOE’s announcements, the government has procured 22.578 million liters from Japan and successive purchases totaling 155.754 million liters from Malaysia, Singapore, India, and Oman—amounting to just over 178 million liters in total. That is only about half of the 318 million-liter procurement target, meaning a substantial portion of that ₱20-billion allocation remains available.

If lawmakers are truly serious about easing fuel-cost burdens, why not redirect the unspent portion of that ₱20-billion allocation to cover fuel costs for election logistics?

Before this issue gets buried, the DOE and PNOC owe the public a full, transparent accounting of every peso spent. The fuel procured was reportedly not sold at commercial pumps, but channeled to the state-run National Power Corporation. The questions are straightforward and non-negotiable: which power plants actually received this fuel, how much did they receive, at what price, and under what government-to-government agreement was it transferred?

The danger in postponing the SK and Barangay elections is not merely the delay itself, but the precedent of turning an "energy emergency" into a political escape hatch. Looking at the Philippine energy sector today, the country may already be staring down a separate crisis: this time in the power sector, with the Visayas and Mindanao grids repeatedly teetering between yellow and red alerts.

The mounting stress on the Visayas and Mindanao power systems is being attributed largely to simultaneous forced plant outages. But the tougher question is this: why does the DOE appear unwilling to fully scrutinize and publicly account for these shutdowns? Were they genuinely unavoidable technical failures, or were some outages engineered?

The warning signs suggest the worst may be ahead. With a super El Niño expected to intensify toward the latter part of the year and into early 2027, prolonged dry spells could further cripple an already strained generation fleet.

To date, the DOE has failed to lay down a concrete roadmap to steer the industry through the dual threats of a Super El Niño and election season power demands. How will the agency manage maintenance shutdowns across an aging generation fleet? What contingencies exist for unexpected breakdowns or delays in committed new capacity? Without clear answers, the public is left facing heightened power service risks in the months ahead.

In Mindanao specifically, grid interconnections and capacity additions completed a decade ago were supposed to create the breathing room needed for one critical task: rehabilitating the Agus-Pulangi hydropower complex. Yet the Marcos administration has squandered that window, and with its term nearing its end, that rehabilitation remains unfulfilled.

At this stage, the DOE appears fixated on long-term solutions that may take a decade or two to bear fruit, while the immediate energy emergency is already here and gathering speed.

Given the dismal state of the power sector—which may persist through the remainder of this administration—should we expect politicians to discover yet another "energy emergency" deflection to postpone the May 2028 presidential elections?

And if the blackout argument fails to convince the public, perhaps they will dust off another convenient geopolitical bogeyman, such as the widely discussed scenario of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. If this script keeps unfolding, the only thing more predictable than a power outage will be the suspension of democracy as the political excuse machine reaches full charge.