Explanation of Vote of Deputy Speaker and Batangas Rep. Ralph Recto

On H.B. No. 4673, “An Act Postponing the December 2022 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections”

20 September 2022

If the courting of votes is big business in this country, the counting of votes is one big bureaucratic expense, too.

Whether taken out of private pockets or public coffers, they are enterprises that cost billions.

The astronomical price tag of holding a national election has been the main driving argument in postponing barangay elections.

This year, for example, the Comelec obligation budget is almost P27 billion. 

This comes up to P400 per voter, far bigger than the expense ceiling of P10 per voter for a presidential candidate.

We have been told that the bare-bones cost of one stand-alone national election is P8.5 billion, which is the amount given to the Comelec to administer the one we are about to scuttle.

This comes up to P126 per voter, 25 times the P5 spending limit that a kapitan wannabe may splurge on for every registered voter in his dominion.

Bakit po ba ganun kamahal ang pagtataguyod ng halalan sa atin bansa?

Two reasons:  Size of electorate and frequency of elections.

Unahin natin ang schedule ng election. Gaano nga ba kadalas ang minsan? 

One national election every 1,095 days. And if we insert a barangay polls in between, then a countrywide election every 547 days.

Second is the sheer size of our electorate – 67,368,508 – which, if it were a country would make it the 22nd largest in the world, is just a couple of hundred thousand behind grieving United Kingdom.

We have 12 times more voters than the entire population of Singapore, and twice that of Malaysia.

‘Yung isang bahay sa atin, isang presinto na sa kanila.

Isa pang dahilan is that we take voting as a deeply personal exercise, tactile even, meaning we have to personally touch the ballot, ironically in an era when we do online banking through apps, entrust our money to ATMs, yet treat voting machines with suspicion. 

Since the turn of the century, barangay polls have been postponed – not once, not twice, not thrice – but four times. 

Three of the deferrals were ordained in the last six years, by force of law. One postponement has a good reason behind it – Covid. Voting was no match to the virus.

And the bill before us would make it four.

And every time such a bill is refined through the legislative grist, the argument that it would save money is always accompanied by the assurance that it would be the last postponement.

In a culture where political guarantees are broken as fast as they are brokered, no promises have often been not redeemed as these two.

Una, hindi naman po talaga makakatipid, for the simple reason that we are just delaying an exercise and not ditching it forever.

Parang budget sa pagpapatayo ng bahay : You can only save if you decide not to build. You can only cancel the cost if you cancel the project altogether.

 And like any human activity not pushed through, elections carry a huge cancelation fine.

The new Comelec chairman has pegged it at P5 billion, certainly not a back-of-napkin jotting from an election expert who knows where he speaks of.

Ang warning ni Chairman Garcia, ang dahilan daw ay sa maaring paglobo ng bilang ng botante – to 90 million. 

Naku, kung mangyayari iyon, the national voters list, if it were a country, would make it the 17th biggest in the world.

Like any inflation, voters’ inflation hurts the pocket, too.

And holding it in December next year would also inflict inconvenience to 25 million innocent bystanders – our public school children.

In a story as old as time, their classroom would be commandeered as voting places and their teachers conscripted as vote counters. 

As usual, elections would have to give way to education, even if the elections would be held during the Yuletide break.

Sa puntong ito, gusto ko pong linawin na YES ang boto ko sa bill na ito, sa kadahilanang nanalig ako na once and for all ay malalapatan ng permanenteng lunas ang halos regular na pagpapaliban ng halalang pambarangay.

We can only resort to band aid solutions for so long. At some point, we have to apply a permanent cure to this festering problem. That time is now.

Another reason that I have to vote YES is that I, too, am a proponent for cancellation. 

I, however, anchor my bill on the idea that the budget for barangay elections be used in the meantime for activities that will improve food security.

I think that is also what the people want today, that given a vote on where the P8.5 billion would be spent, they would choose, by a landslide, food that could feed their families, rather than a ballot they would feed on the counting machines.

More than the election fatigue cited by the Comelec in invoking that the elections be postponed, it is the people’s hunger that should benefit from the postponement dividend.

While that temporary transfer of funds is not explicitly commanded in this bill, we all know that it gives the government more fiscal maneuver room to direct funds to this endeavor.

Mr. Speaker, my dear colleagues: 

I cast my YES vote on the belief that political and economic reforms are indeed forthcoming, including a long-term strategy on how to make the conduct of elections economical.