AFTER several postponements, the Sangguniang Kabataan ang barangay elections will finally be held on May 14 in the more than 42,000 villages except in Marawi City, the Commission on Elections said Wednesday.
Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said there were no places in Marawi City where voting could be held because of its destruction, and that the elections could not be held outside it.
He made his statement even as the Interior department said it was ready to file charges against dozens of village officials who are in the drug watchlist.
Interior Secretary Jonathan Malaya said village officials would also face separate charges for failing to execute the plan of the Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Council, a tool intended to prevent the proliferation of illegal drugs in their respective communities.
“The DILG will start filling cases against barangay officials who are in the drug watchlist and who failed to organize and execute the plan of the BADAC,” Malaya said.
Meanwhile, incoming National Police Chief Oscar Albayalde said the Comelec could not simply order the candidates for the village and youth council elections to undergo testing for illegal drugs before the scheduled filing of Certificates of Candidacy beginning Saturday.
Albayalde said the aspirants and reelectionists in the May 14 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections should voluntary submit themselves for drug testing.
“If I were a candidate for a barangay office, maybe If I were not hiding anything, I myself should volunteer for a drug test,”he said.
Jimenez said many voters had yet to return to their homes in Marawi City that were destroyed by the clashes between government troops and members of the ISIS-inspired Maute terrorist group.
He said the barangay officials in Marawi City would continue to serve in a holdover capacity.
Three months after the elections, the Comelec would be sending a team to Marawi to assess if elections could already be held there, Jimenez said.
The occupation of Marawi City by the Maute group in May last year prompted President Rodrigo Duterte to put Mindanao under martial law.
Duterte declared Marawi liberated last October after government troops killed terrorist leaders Isnilon Hapilon and Omar Maute following a five-month armed fighting. More than 1,000 people, mostly terror fighters, died amid the clashes.