Duterte nixes barangay polls postponement

Incoming President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday said he does not favor the postponement of the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections this October 2016.

Duterte said postponing the barangay elections will leave officials acting in a holdover capacity.

“I’m not in favor. The law says that when you end there, you end there,” Duterte told reporters.

Duterte said postponing the barangay and SK polls would require a new piece of legislation, a position shared by lawmakers and even Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Andres Bautista himself.

Bautista earlier said primary considerations in postponing the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections include election fatigue as the 2016 national and local elections have just been concluded.

Being manual, it is also labor-intensive and will entail a lot of costs, he added.