Democracy has deadlines

By Herman M. Lagon

Imagine telling your students that the final examination is on Friday. They prepare, rearrange schedules, finish requirements, and show up ready. Then on Thursday afternoon, you announce that the exam will be next year. Later, perhaps two years from now. No emergency has closed the school. The room is ready. The teachers are ready. The students are ready. Someone simply thinks another date might be more convenient. A reasonable student would eventually ask: Sir, final na gid ni? That question now feels very real in the barangays.

The next BSKE is supposed to happen on November 2, 2026. The law had already moved it once and settled on four-year terms. Yet barely a year later, another postponement is being proposed, this time to 2028. If approved, some officials elected in 2023 could stay in office for five years without first returning to the voters. Recent reports confirm that several House measures are seeking the 2028 postponement, while a Senate proposal also seeks five-year terms.

To be fair, the reasons being raised deserve a hearing rather than ridicule. Proponents have pointed to the energy crisis, higher costs, pressure on government resources, disaster response, and other demands competing for public money. Elections are expensive. So are classrooms, evacuation centers, hospitals, fuel subsidies, and practically everything government has to operate these days. A peso spent in one place cannot be spent somewhere else. Responsible legislators should ask whether public money is being used wisely. That part of the argument is legitimate.

But there is a problem with treating elections mainly as an expense: democracy will almost always look cheaper when postponed.

We would never seriously suggest suspending congressional elections because ballot printing costs money. We would not tell voters to wait another two years to choose a mayor because gasoline has become expensive. Elections are indeed costly, but their cost purchases something difficult to put into an accounting spreadsheet: consent. At the barangay level, that consent is especially personal. This is the government office people approach when a streetlight has been dead for months, when floodwater enters the sitio, when a family needs assistance, when neighbors quarrel over a boundary, or when somebody needs a barangay certificate before reporting for work. Barangay governance is democracy within walking distance.

This is also why repeated postponement should make us uncomfortable even when the people proposing it believe they have practical reasons. The Philippines has moved barangay elections many times before. NAMFREL argues that another delay risks making postponement itself normal: once election schedules become negotiable, moving the next one becomes easier. That concern is not theoretical. The 2026 election is itself the product of a previous postponement. If November 2026 becomes November 2028, citizens could understandably begin wondering whether an election date means “this is when you vote” or merely “this is when we currently plan to let you vote.”

The Supreme Court has already given the country a useful compass. In Macalintal v. COMELEC, the Court declared unconstitutional the law that postponed the 2022 BSKE. More importantly, it explained why regular elections matter. The free and meaningful exercise of suffrage requires genuine and periodic elections held at intervals that are not unduly long, so that government authority continues to rest on the expressed will of voters. The Court also laid down a demanding standard for postponement: it should be exceptional and supported by important, substantial, or compelling circumstances, such as protecting free and safe elections, safeguarding fundamental rights, or responding to a genuine public emergency.

There is an important legal nuance here. In November 2025, the Supreme Court upheld RA 12232, which established the current November 2026 schedule, and clarified how its earlier Macalintal guidelines applied to that law. That makes casual claims about the constitutionality of the newest proposals unwise before Congress acts and, if challenged, the courts rule. Still, the larger democratic question survives the legal technicalities: how often should citizens be asked to accept an extension of an electoral timetable that government itself previously established?

For teachers, perhaps the easiest way to understand the discomfort is through something we practice every day: accountability needs a date. We give students deadlines because “submit when convenient” is rarely a serious system. Faculty members have IPCR deadlines. Schools undergo accreditation on scheduled dates. Licenses expire. Budgets close. Administrators finish terms. Even library books have due dates. Deadlines do more than organize calendars. They create moments when somebody must account for what was promised and what was actually delivered. Election Day performs that function in public life.

Consider a barangay captain who has performed remarkably well since 2023. Roads were repaired, disaster response improved, records became transparent, and residents feel heard. An election is not punishment for that official. It is an opportunity for the community to say, Padayon. A renewed mandate is stronger than an extended stay granted by legislation. Now consider the opposite: residents have spent years complaining about unexplained spending, poor services, favoritism, or an official who is almost impossible to find at the barangay hall. For them, postponement is not an abstract constitutional debate in Manila. It means waiting longer for the ordinary chance to choose somebody else.

The SK side deserves equal attention. Young people do not remain in the same stage of life for very long. A 20-year-old elected in 2023 may be working in Cebu, Manila, or abroad several years later. Others who were too young to run in the previous election may now be ready to serve. Panay groups opposing postponement have raised precisely this concern, arguing that another election opens space for new youth leaders while some incumbents may already have moved into different stages of their lives. Youth representation loses some of its meaning if renewal keeps being placed on hold.

Then there is the practical matter that makes the present debate more urgent: COMELEC says it is prepared to conduct the elections. Preparations continue for November 2, and the official calendar already includes an October 22–31 campaign period and Election Day voting from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. This puts the country in an awkward position. Candidates, voters, election workers, schools, barangays, local governments, and COMELEC cannot sensibly operate indefinitely between tuloy and hindi tuloy. Government owes them clarity.

That is why the decision should be made soon. Congress should examine the claimed emergency carefully, put the evidence on the table, calculate the real savings and costs, hear COMELEC and constitutional experts, and decide while there is still enough time for everyone to act accordingly. If circumstances are truly extraordinary enough to justify postponement, the public deserves to see why. If they are not, November 2 should remain November 2. Neither side gains from letting uncertainty drag on until Election Day.

Before changing a rule that affects millions, we should ask who carries the consequences. A postponement may look practical from a budget desk in Manila. It feels different to the resident waiting for better drainage, the mother following up ayuda, the teacher worried about an out-of-school child, or the first-time voter eager to choose an SK leader.

This does not mean every incumbent should go. Many barangay and SK officials serve remarkably well, often with limited resources and little recognition. Some deserve reelection overwhelmingly. Let voters give it to them. That is precisely the point. Elections are not primarily mechanisms for removing leaders. They are how citizens periodically renew or withdraw permission to govern.

November 2 is now less than three months away. There is still time for serious deliberation, but uncertainty itself has a cost. We can debate four-year or five-year terms for future officials. We can redesign the electoral calendar prospectively. We can study how to make barangay elections cheaper, cleaner, safer, and less disruptive. Those are worthy conversations. What deserves much greater caution is repeatedly changing the date after voters have already been told when their next opportunity to choose will come.

A ballot is a small piece of paper. The promise behind it is much larger: On this date, the choice returns to you.

When government gives citizens that date, moving it should require an exceptional reason. Otherwise, the lesson becomes one we would never tolerate in our own classrooms: deadlines apply until those with authority decide they do not.

Democracy, too, has deadlines. This one should be kept.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.