DAGUPAN CITY, (PNA)—The Commission on Election (Comelec) provincial office has confirmed that 30 percent of the more than 1,200 barangays in Pangasinan have yet to remit their respective financial contributions for the holding of the barangay and the Sangguniang Kabataan elections on October 28.
Lawyer Marino Salas, provincial election supervisor, said that under Comelec resolution No. 9739, barangays are mandated to contribute not less than P10,000 or not more than the 10% of their barangay budgets to defray election expenses before the start of election period last September 28.
The amount will be used mainly for the honoraria, transportation allowance and for the training of barangay election tellers (BET). In Dagupan, some 16,000 teachers will serve as BETs whose training is slated next week.
He said the amount would have already been been released by the barangays before the start of the election period last Sept. 28.
Salas confirmed that barangay officials are hesitant to release their counterpart funds intended for the barangay elections until Comelec warned them of possible violation to the omnibus election code for failure to comply with Comelec Res. 9739.
Rhoderick Dawis, city director of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) here, said some barangay captains are reluctant to remit the amount expected of them because they are still awaiting if the SK election will really be postponed.
They said that if the SK polls would be postponed, it means a reduction of their counterpart funds to be remitted to the poll body.
“We talked to the barangay captains and conveyed to them that Comelec Dagupan promised to return the amount intended for the SK elections in case of postponement”, Dawis said.
Meanwhile, Salas said that their preparation still includes the SK election since they have not yet received a memorandum or resolution stating its postponement.