DAGUPAN CITY, Aug. 9 — The city election officer of Dagupan has confirmed that a lot of public funds, as well as efforts, will go to waste if the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections set for Oct. 23 will be postponed again for the second time.
Lawyer Erickson Oganiza, city election officer of Dagupan, said not only the Comelec office in Dagupan but also other field offices of the agency are in the process and others have already finished printing their computerized list of voters.
In Dagupan, he said, they are now checking the list for possible errors as part of their preparations for the coming barangay and SK elections.
But in the national office, they have already started printing the official ballots for the October 23 barangay and SK elections numbering more than 77 million for distribution all over the country, he added in an interview on Wednesday.
These ballots, that will cost more than a billion pesos, may not be used if these two political exercises are postponed again for a latter day as these are intended to be used for a specific day.
” I don’t think these ballots and other documents already readied and being readied can still be used for another date,” said Oganiza but added this is all up to Congress, whether it will pass another law postponing these elections.
As to the report that lawmakers are inclined to pass a law resetting the election in May next year to hopefully coincide with a referendum on federalism yet to be legislated by Congress, Oganiza said this might be hard, but if the agency receives such mandate, it may find a way to do it.
He cited the fact that in these barangay and SK elections, the 18 to 30 years old people are SK members so therefore, they can also vote in the barangay elections as regular voters. Therefore, they are voting twice on the same day in two political exercises.
Oganiza said this poses a big problem to the Comelec since this is only the first time in the history of the country that voters, specifically those 18 to 30 years old, can vote twice on the same day.
He revealed that based on the computerized list of voters in Dagupan, there are 108,476 regular voters and 41,273 SK voters. (PNA)
