Fee on Elections Chairman George Garcia (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)
MANILA, Philippines — The Fee on Elections (Comelec) on Thursday mentioned it was granted a P2.589-billion contingency fund for the 2023 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections.
Comelec Chairman George Garcia verified the extra funding in response to an inquiry from Senate Minority Chief Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III.
“Comelec was given from the contingent fund by the authority of the President P2.589 billion?” Pimentel requested Garcia in the course of the deliberations on Comelec’s proposed 2024 price range.
Garcia confirmed it and defined that it was obtained when the barangay and SK elections have been moved to October 30, 2023.
“Kasi na-reset po … ‘di ba po dapat nga December 5, 2022 [but was moved to October 30], nag-registration po kami nag-increase ng variety of voters kasama SK, ngayon po 91 million kasama ang SK, so nag-increase din po ang variety of precincts, variety of the electoral boards that will probably be serving pati poll bins, pati additional time,” he defined.
(As a result of it was reset from December 5, 2022 to October 30, therefore we had voter registrations, we registered and elevated the variety of voters with SK, now it’s 91 million with SK, so we additionally enhance the variety of precincts, electoral boards that will probably be serving in addition to poll bins and additional time.)
Senator Imee Marcos mentioned that there was already an allotment of P8.411 billion for the barangay and SK elections.
With the brand new funding, Garcia mentioned the overall price range allotted for the elections is now P11 billion.
Round P7 billion will probably be used to pay for the honorarium and coaching of electoral board members, whereas the remainder — together with the extra funding — will probably be used to finance different prices.
The official marketing campaign interval is from October 19 to twenty-eight.
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