Leaders expect talk on postponement of village polls

PASAY CITY -- The proposed postponement of the 2013 barangay elections might be tackled in Thursday’s opening of the Liga ng mga Barangay sa Pilipinas 2012 National Convention at the Mall of Asia.

Thousands of village leaders around the country are anxious to hear any pronouncement pertaining to next year’s barangay elections.

Speculations from some barangay officials attending the convention showed that six of the 30 keynote speakers in today’s convention will be vital in clearing the fog of the postponement issue.

The six are Vice President Jejomar Binay, Senators Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., Francis Escudero and Loren Legarda, newly-appointed Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas and Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair Sixto Brillantes.

“The six are vital speakers that might bloat the proposed postponement. There is the vice president, senators and especially the secretary of DILG and of course the comelec chairman. Very vital,” said Romeo Bacarro, village chief of Tablon in Cagayan de Oro.

Last July, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile expressed his support to the proposed postponement.

Earlier, Cagayan de Oro City Representative Rufus Rodriguez (2nd District) announced that the bill he authored amending the term of elected barangay officials to five years was approved in a house committee.

The code provides that elected barangay officials have three or four years in each term, unless otherwise provided by law.

Bacarro said he did not also discount the possibility that President Benigno Aquino III might turn down the proposed postponement.

“He also has the final say, just like three years ago in the same convention here where the president did not make any pronouncement over the proposal,” he said.

The proposal to postpone the barangay elections three years ago was killed in the committee level at the House of Representatives reportedly by the president’s allies during his transition in office.

“We’ll just wait and see,” Bacarro said.