16/09/2026
Yung network na lg Roman Catholic and Protestant churches ang makakatulong sa atin sa pakikipaglaban sa political machinery ng mga Dynast TraPos sa laylayan.
The repeated postponement of the barangay and SK elections, normalized under Duterte and worsened under Marcos, entrenches grassroots political machinery at the expense of the people’s right to choose, making Senators Tito Sotto, Bam Aquino, Kiko Pangilinan, Risa Hontiveros and Joel Villanueva deserving of praise for standing as the only five senators who voted against this assault on periodic democratic accountability.
Political dynasties do not begin in Congress. They begin much closer to home - in the barangay. That is precisely why the repeated postponement of the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections should concern anyone who takes the constitutional right of suffrage seriously. Barangay positions are often the entry point into local political machinery, where family names, political operators and patronage networks are cultivated long before they reach the provincial capitol, the House or the Senate.
And the pattern is becoming difficult to ignore.
The practice of extending barangay and SK officials’ tenure began under Rodrigo Duterte. The 2022 BSKE was postponed, resulting in another extension of incumbent officials. The Supreme Court eventually declared the postponement law unconstitutional, holding that genuine, periodic elections are indispensable to the meaningful exercise of the right to vote. The Court specifically warned that postponement must be the exception, justified only by sufficiently important, substantial or compelling reasons.
Yet instead of treating that ruling as a constitutional warning, Congress appears to have treated it as a drafting challenge.
The 19th Congress postponed the elections yet again while simultaneously resetting the statutory term of barangay and SK officials. Now the 20th Congress has gone even further: five-year terms, another postponement, and incumbent officials effectively remaining in office until 2028.
That is not merely an administrative adjustment. It is a political decision to delay the electorate’s opportunity to replace, reject or challenge those already holding power.
Only five senators stood against it: Tito Sotto, Bam Aquino, Kiko Pangilinan, Risa Hontiveros and Joel Villanueva. Thirteen others voted in favor of the postponement.
Those five understood the constitutional issue.
The Supreme Court has already made the governing principle unmistakable: the right of suffrage requires honest, genuine, regular and periodic elections, and postponement cannot become the rule. The electorate must retain an effective opportunity to exercise its right to vote at intervals that are not unduly long.
Congress certainly possesses the power to fix the terms of barangay officials. But constitutional power is not a license for constitutional abuse. Legislative discretion remains subject to the Constitution, particularly when the legislation directly affects the people’s right to choose their representatives.
The fiscal argument also deserves scrutiny.
If the elections have already required billions of pesos in preparations, that is an argument for responsible fiscal planning - not automatically a justification for depriving millions of Filipinos of a scheduled electoral exercise. COMELEC has said it had already spent about ₱8 billion in preparations for the November 2 BSKE.
And what exactly have incumbent barangay officials done to merit another extension?
If there are genuinely compelling reasons to postpone the elections, Congress should identify them clearly and constitutionally. But “we can save money,” “the election is inconvenient,” or “we can simply give them another year” cannot become a permanent substitute for the people’s ballot.
Because where does this end?
If Congress can repeatedly postpone elections and repeatedly lengthen the tenure of those already holding grassroots power, eventually the distinction between an elected mandate and political entitlement becomes dangerously thin.
This is where the barangay becomes more than a barangay issue. It becomes a constitutional issue. The Duterte administration normalized the postponement. The Marcos administration and the present Congress have now allowed the practice to deepen. What began as an exception is in danger of becoming institutionalized political convenience.
That is precisely why the five senators who voted against this measure deserve recognition.
Sotto. Aquino. Pangilinan. Hontiveros. Villanueva.
Five votes against postponing the people’s right to choose.
Five votes reminding Congress that the barangay belongs to its residents, not to the political families and operators who happen to control it.
Elections are not an inconvenience to be rescheduled whenever incumbents find it convenient. They are the constitutional mechanism by which political power is renewed, challenged and, when necessary, replaced.
