MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will request up to P3 billion additional funds if the 2026 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) are postponed, its chairperson George Erwin Garcia said on Thursday.
According to Garcia, the government can save billions of pesos whenever elections are postponed, but resetting requires more funding due to additional registered voters.
“If the elections are reset, we will ask for additional funding. If the elections are reset, there will be additional voters, teachers [that will serve as electoral board members], precincts, and election paraphernalia,” Garcia, speaking Filipino, told reporters in an interview.
READ: Comelec says BSKE preps not wasted if polls are postponed
“Our estimate is we will have to request for more or less P3 billion if we reset the BSKE,” Garcia added.
Deputy Speaker and Bacolod City Rep. Albee Benitez earlier called for a six-month postponement of the BSKE, scheduled for November 2, 2026, due to the crisis caused by tensions in the Middle East. Benitez said that the funds allocated for the conduct of the elections can help the Filipinos affected by the crisis.
Garcia earlier said that the poll body will not oppose the postponement as the discretion lies within the Congress and the Executive. However, he reiterated that the BSKE budget cannot be reallocated to another government agency.
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He cited Article 6, Section 25 (5) of the 1986 Constitution which states that: “N]o law shall be passed authorizing any transfer of appropriations; however, the President, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the heads of Constitutional Commissions may, by law, be authorized to augment any item in the general appropriations law for their respective offices from savings in other items of their respective appropriations.”
He noted that of the P19 billion funds requested for the conduct of the BSKE, the poll body has spent around P8 billion. Of the P8 billion, P3 billion was allotted for the printing of ballot boxes, while the P5 billion was allocated for the contracts the Comelec entered into.
“The P11 billion that we will save, we will use that to pay honoraria to teachers, deployment, and for training of teachers, and mobilization expenses of Comelec. So that is the amount that the government will save if the BSKE are postponed,” Garcia said in Filipino.
He also said that the funds that will be saved if the elections are postponed will serve as continuing appropriations to be used for the resetting of the elections. /jpv
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