Electorate should decide on barangay polls, Duterte told

Akbayan party-list Rep. Tom Villarin rejected President Duterte's plan to postpone anew the barangay elections this October and instead appoint an estimated 344,000 barangay officials.

"If barangay officials are involved in drugs, let the people kick them out through the ballot. Give that power to the people not to one person. That's the essence of democracy," Villarin pointed out after the President claimed that numerous barangay officials arte inviovled in the illegal drugs trade.

The planned postponement of the October elections got the full backing of the House of Representatives leadership.

Magdalo party-list Rep. Gary Alejano, who filed an impeachment complaint against President Duterte, sought the filing of administrative and graft complaints against village officers who are involved in illegal drugs.

“In that way those suspected barangay captains will have the opportunity to defend themselves and at the same time those who are considered clean will not be dragged unnecessarily and their names destroyed before the public,” he said.

“Proper cases would have been filed against the suspects. He better stop using it to justify short circuiting the system and justify his desire to control politics in the grassroots,” Alejano said.

He said the postponement of barangay polls undermines the rights of the people to choose their leaders.

"If he claims that drug lords will finance the elections, what have he done to them in the last nine months that he is in the office? Does he mean that he can not go after them and that he just will resort to defeating them by postponing the elections and appointing barangay captains?” Alejano asked.

For his part, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman opposed the appointments of officers-incharge and other barangay officials.

“Any further postponement of the village polls must not allow the appointment of OICs either by the President or the Secretary of DILG (Department of Interior and Local Government),” he said.

“The choice of elective officials belongs to the electorate,” Lagman said.