ILOILO CITY — The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) here is still waiting for guidelines on what to do with vacant Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) posts after the May 14 polls.
Lawyer Ferdinand Panes on Thursday said that they have been anticipating the scenario and he presumed that the DILG regional office has already sent out guidelines on what will happen to barangays having the said concern.
In Iloilo City, close to 300 SK positions are vacant.
Data from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) showed two of the 180 barangays in the city have no candidates for Sangguniang Kabataan chairperson and eight have no SK kagawad aspirants.
Barangay Sta. Isabel in Jaro district has no candidates for SK chair and kagawad.
Barangay Tanza Timawa I has no candidate for chairperson while Barangays Desamparados, Maria Cristina, Magsaysay, Seminario, President Roxas, Sampaguita and Yulo Arroyo have no kagawad candidates.
Moreover, around 95 barangays have either seven candidates or less than the required post for the SK council.
In the past, to fill in vacant posts, they followed the provision of the law that there has to be a special election.
“I could not recall that there was an issuance of appointment,” he said citing the 2010 elections.
Panes attributed the lack of candidates to some provisions of the SK Reform Act such as the anti-dynasty and the restriction in age qualification.
He said that those who ran for SK posts in the past were immediate relatives of barangay official.
The age bracket for those who can run is 18 to 24 years old. Since most of them are working, so they no longer have time to join youth activities, such as the SK.
“I think there would be possible reviews of the SK Reform Act. I hope they could come up before the assumption to office,” he said.
He added that there were also other ideas that were entertained such as whether or not for the President to exercise the “residual powers”.
Residual power is the “power to appoint officials” but the Constitution was silent on who will be the appointing authority. He said that if there was no mention then it is the President.
“The issue is I don’t know what law will be cited in the EO (Executive Order) because it was not stated in the SK Reform Act the appointment,” he said. Instead, what was stated in the SK Reform Act was the special elections.
Meantime, Panes said that DILG is bent on implementing the one day mandatory training for winning SK officials prior they assume office.
The training should be done before May 26. DILG has partnered with various learning resource institutes (LRIs) to handle the training, he said. (Perla Lena/PNA)
