September 1, 2025 | 1:51pm
MANILA, Philippines — Commission on Elections Chair George Garcia appealed to lawmakers to augment the poll body’s 2026 budget, saying the current proposal leaves out funding for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections.
During the House appropriations panel’s budget briefing on Monday, September 1, Garcia said the executive branch proposed only P11.85 billion for the poll body, lower than its P18.07-billion request for 2026.
The proposed budget, however, does not earmark funds for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE), even after President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. signed into law Republic Act 12232, which postpones the polls to November 2026 and extends the term of barangay and SK officials to four years.
The budget proposal, however, was prepared with the assumption that the original schedule would proceed.
Despite motions in Congress to raise the budget for the baragany elections last year, Garcia said Congress did not increase funding: the 2025 General Appropriations Act kept the same P11.6-billion allocation that the 2025 National Expenditure Program had proposed.
According to Garcia, the P11.6-billion budget does not factor in the across-the-board P2,000 increase in honoraria for teachers and poll workers.
Complicating matters further, the newly enacted law is also being challenged at the Supreme Court, creating uncertainty over the Comelec’s funding needs.
Garcia earlier said preparations for the December barangay elections will continue unless the Supreme Court rules the law unconstitutional.
More voters, more teachers needed
He stressed that this poses two problems. First, the current budget is insufficient to cover the necessary pay increase for volunteer poll workers and teachers in the BSKE.
Second, if the polls are postponed to 2026, no additional funds are available to accommodate the increase in voters.
“‘Yun po lahat ng teachers na dapat magseserve sa Barangay and SK [Elections] ng December 1, kung matutuloy, wala po silang additional honoraria of P2,000,” the poll chief said.
(All teachers who are supposed to serve in the Barangay and SK Elections on December 1, if it pushes through, will not receive the additional honoraria of P2,000.)
Honorarium rates. Electoral board chairpersons are entitled to P12,000, while poll clerks and third members each receive P11,000.
Support staff earn P8,000, the same rate given to admin staff. Department of Education (DepEd) supervisors are paid P11,000, while tech staff receive P9,000. There were 758,459 poll workers during the midterm polls.
From the contingent fund. The P2,000 across-the-board pay hike was approved after the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) endorsed Comelec’s request, with the fund for the poll workers taken from the Office of the President’s contingent fund.
Aside from the unfunded pay increase, Garcia said there is also money to hire additional precict staff or to run a voter-education campaign, even though voter registrations are expected to rise by about 4 million.
In August, over 2.7 million Filipinos applied for voter registration.
“Natanggalan din po kami ng budget para sa deployment at natanggalan din po kami ng budget para sa training kaya nawala po ang aming P8 billion doon sa budget,” he added.
(We were also stripped of the budget for deployment and the budget for training, which is why we lost P8 billion from our allocation.)
P9 billion more to mount barangay, SK elections
Garcia explained to the appropriations committee that the Comelec would need around P9 billion to properly stage the polls, particularly if it is ultimately postponed to November 2026 amid the expected rise in voters.
This would require additional election materials, including separate ballots. It would also mean more ballot boxes and more teachers needed to handle the expected increase in voters per precinct.
While 60,000 ballot boxes have already been ordered for December, Garcia said it may no longer be enough should the elections be held next year instead.
Although the national and local elections were automated, the baranagay elections will be fully manual.
In the Philippines, manual elections have long been vulnerable to ballot box snatching as well as intimidation of electoral board members and canvassing officials.
The baranagay election has also been repeatedly postponed since 2016, with lawmakers citing a lack of time for officials to implement their programs as the reason.