The Commission on Elections (Comelec) heeded the call to reduce spending as much as possible, decreasing its proposed budget for 2023 to PHP4 billion from the original PHP10 billion.
However, the budget does not include the proposed increase in the honoraria of poll workers.
“Alam po ng Comelec ang problema po natin sa kasalukuyan sa pera. At dahil diyan, nakiki-isa po tayo sa pagtitipid. Kung kinakailangang magtipid at magagawan naman ng paraan, gagawin po ng Comelec (The Comelec knows our current problem with money. And because of that, we join [the government] in saving. If saving money is needed and we can find a way, the Comelec will do it),” Comelec Chair George Garcia said in interview after the budget hearing was suspended.
Comelec lacked some of the documents that the senators asked for but Garcia promised to send them within the day.
The Senate is currently on recess but continues to conduct budget hearings.
The Comelec was supposed to spend PHP8.5 billion for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE), which has been reset from December 5 to October next year
Garcia said the country has 91 million BSKE voters, 25 million of whom are SK voters only.
By next year, the poll body estimates an additional 5 million to 7 million voters, 30,000 more precincts from the current 199,000 precincts, and 100,000 additional election workers as registration will be held anew from November to May 2023.
“Mas madami, mas maganda (The more, the better). That’s good for democracy. Subalit sa kasalukuyan (But for now), we can only estimate. But by May 2023, we can find out ilan talaga at magkano ang gagamitin natin. Baka naman mas maliit talaga ‘yung karagdagang hinihingi namin and therefore, ‘yan ay mako-cover ng (the actual numbers and how much we will spend. Maybe, what we are asking for is smaller and therefore, can be covered by the) supplemental budget,” Garcia said
Source: Philippines News Agency
