PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday, December 3, signed into law a measure moving the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections for the third time.
The synchronized elections, originally scheduled for May 2020, will now be held in December 2022.
The President signed Republic Act (RA) 11462 or the Postponement of the 2020 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections Act as well as the Malasakit Center Act during a ceremonial signing held at Palace's Rizal Hall on Tuesday afternoon.
RA 11462 directs incumbent barangay and SK officials to stay in office until their successors have been duly elected.
The barangay and SK officials who will be elected in December 2022 will assume office on January 1, 2023.
Subsequent village and youth council polls will be held on the first Monday of December 2025 and every three years after.
MalacaƱang has yet to release a copy of the newly-signed law.
This is the third time that the barangay and SK elections were postponed under the Duterte administration.
In October 2016, Duterte signed a law moving the twin elections from October 31, 2016 to October 23, 2017, citing the reason that 40 percent of villages had already been contaminated by illegal drugs.
The October 2017 schedule was again moved to May 2018.
The new schedule, December 2022, means there will be two elections in 2022, the presidential elections in May and the synchronized barangay and SK elections in December.
The measure postponing the barangay and SK elections was one of the priority measures that Duterte enumerated during his State of the Nation Address on July 22, 2019. (NASE/SunStar Philippines)