The Liga ng mga Barangay sa Pilipinas has asked the Supreme Court (SC) to junk petitions questioning the constitutionality of Republic Act (RA) 12232, which extends the term of incumbent barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) officials and resets the elections to November 2026.

In a petition for intervention, Liga president Maria Katrina Jessica Dy of San Fabian, Echague, Isabela, through counsel Albert Agra, urged the High Court to dismiss the cases for lack of merit.

The group argued that RA 12232 validly fixes and extends the term of barangay and SK officials, a power expressly granted to Congress by the Constitution. They stressed the measure differs from RA 11935, which merely postponed the December 2022 polls and was later declared unconstitutional by the SC.

“The authority to extend the term of BSK officials is one granted by the Constitution to the legislature. Questioning this wisdom without evidence of illegality or grave abuse is precisely what the Constitution guards against,” the group said.

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. earlier explained that he signed RA 12232 to allow the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to focus fully on the first Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) parliamentary elections on October 13. He said holding both the BARMM polls and the barangay and SK elections within months could overextend the Comelec’s resources. (PNA)