The House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms on Tuesday has approved the motion to postpone the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections (BSKE) from the original schedule on Dec. 5, 2022, to Dec. 4, 2023.

About 12 committee members voted in favor of the postponement and only two voted not in favor.

Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) party-list Rep. France Castro and Kabataan party-list Rep. Raoul Manuel were the two lawmakers who voted against the poll postponement.

The said rescheduling of the barangay and youth council elections will save Php 8 billion budget.

Lawmakers from both the Senate and the House have earlier filed bills seeking the rescheduling of the December 2022 election.

Each one of them claimed that the deferment of the BSKE would save money for the government and it could be used for financial assistance to aid Filipinos amid the crisis.

During the committee hearing, Commission on Election (Comelec) Chairman George Garcia said the poll body will abide by the decision of Congress and the Executive.

He only requested to move it to 2023 as the poll body will prepare for the 2024 election.

In an interview, Garcia reiterates that they respect the decisions of legislators and the executive and assured that the Comelec is prepared whether the poll election will continue in December or May 2023.

The BSKE was supposed to be held in May 2020, however, former president Rodrigo Duterte signed a measure to postpone it to December 5, 2022.

In 2019, Duterte said in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) that the rescheduling would give sitting barangay officials the time to finish their programs and projects.