Having just spent huge budget last May for the national and local elections, it is wise to postpone the barangay elections in December and in its stead pour the P8.141 billion that would be spent for barangay elections to a stimulus program and ayuda to help Filipinos tide over an uncontrollable fuel price hikes, inflation, food price increases and rising unemployment and underemployment.
Providing stimulus to spur an economic rebound is far more important to the incoming administration of president-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. than holding a barangay election.
Thus under the incoming speakership of Marcos Jr.’s first cousin, a stimulus program far outweighs the barangay polls, and its budget must thus be spent on providing Filipino citizens, especially the indigent families, with ayuda.
The stimulus bill, which carries the initials of the incoming president is among the priority legislation under Speaker Ferdinand Martin Gomez Romualdez in the 19th Congress.
Romualdez who was nominated by the incoming president as his choice for speaker is backed by several political parties and a coalition of partylists.
He told reporters at a luncheon that barangay captains from the Liga ng mga Barangay asked for the postponement of barangay polls which are scheduled to be held in December. (And just coming from a national and local election last May, too much budget had already been used).
“This will be one of the items in our priority agenda for it to prosper prior to it becoming moot,” he said.
Romualdez said that postponing the barangay elections would save the government P8.141 billion which can be used for the continuing response to the pandemic, cash aid and economic stimulus.
The incumbent House majority leader also set his eyes on passing a stimulus package named after his cousin Marcos’ initials called the “Bayan Bangon Muli bill.”
Details are still scant on the proposal, aside from Romualdez saying that this will “allow the incoming president to harness the resources available to him during this closing period of 2022 and address the measures that are needed for the pandemic” and “to harness whatever remaining resources to stimulate the economy and to reinvigorate it for the better of all.”
Without going into detail, Romualdez said there are “a host of priority measures” before Marcos, but they have not formally met to talk about these proposals.
Tags: #postponingbarangaypolls, #ayudaandeconomicstimulus, #19thCongress, #Congress