The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has started preparations for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) scheduled on Dec. 1, 2025.
The poll body took the move as it announced that a 10-day nationwide voter registration for the village polls will be held July 1-11, 2025.
In a news forum, Comelec chairman George Garcia gave assurance that the upcoming elections will see major improvements, smarting from previous electoral exercises.
Garcia said among the initiatives to enhance the coming village polls involved the removal of the barangay certificate as a requirement for voter registration for the 2025 BSK elections.
He cited the recent cases of mass issuance of barangay certificates that could enable irregular transfers of voter registration.
Garcia also confirmed that the BSKE will definitely push through on December 1, unless Congress passes a law to postpone them.
He said the registration included reactivation, transfer of registration, and list-up of new voters. The Comelec expects some one million new voters to register during the 10-day period.
“If our current voters are 68,431,965, let's say we can register one million in 10 days, we will have 69.5 million voters for BSKE. That is still a very conservative estimate of those who will register in 10 days,” Garcia said.
At the same time, Garcia said there will be no voter registration in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) despite the conduct of the Bangsamoro Parliamentary Election (BPE) in October.
“We will not have registration in BARMM. We don't want to create the impression that those who register in the 10 days from July to August will vote for BPE,” he said.
“Registration in the BARMM is suspended, so that those who will vote for BPE are only those voters in the NLE (national and local elections). There will be no resumption of voter registration in the BARMM although there will be election in October,” Garcia said.
