BY ATTY. JULIUS GREGORY B. DELGADO
Term-Setting or Postponement in Disguise? Macalintal v. Office of the President, G.R. No. E-08557, October 14, 2026
Third time was not the charm for Atty. Romulo B. Macalintal. On October 14, 2026, the Supreme Court En Banc, through Justice (now Chief Justice) Rodil V. Zalameda, dismissed his petition against Republic Act No. 12326 and upheld the law that moved the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) from November 2, 2026 to the second Monday of November 2028.
The case Macalintal v. Office of the President, et al., G.R. No. E-08557, is the third time in four years that the same petitioner has asked the Court to stop Congress from moving the BSKE. He won the first. He lost the second. With this ruling, he has lost the third, and on almost exactly the same reasoning as the second. The Decision is worth reading closely, not only for what it settles but for what it leaves open.
On September 24, 2026, the President signed Republic Act No. 12326, which amended RA 12232, the term-setting law the Court had upheld only in November 2025. RA 12326 did four things that matter here: (1) lengthened the term of barangay and SK officials from four to five years; (2) cut the consecutive-term limit of barangay officials from three terms to two; (3) moved the next BSKE from November 2, 2026 to the second Monday of November 2028, and every five years after; and (4) in its transitory provision, referred to the “extension of their terms by two years” and counted the incumbents as having completed one term.
The day after the law took effect, the COMELEC stopped all BSKE preparations, including the filing of certificates of candidacy and the printing of ballots. Two days later, on September 27, 2026, Macalintal filed a Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition as a voter, taxpayer and lawyer. He argued that RA 12326 is an election-postponement law disguised as a term-fixing law; that it fails the 2023 Macalintal guidelines and substantive due process; that the hold-over of incumbents is a legislative appointment; and that the law violates the one subject-one title rule. A Punong Barangay from Bantayan Island, Cebu, sought to intervene in support of the law.
The Supreme Court dismissed the third Macalintal Petition. The Court held that it is a term-fixing law as evident from its very text. The Court looked at the same markers it used in 2025. The title says the law is “fixing” the term, not “postponing” an election. It amends RA 12232, a term-setting law, not RA 9164, which the old postponement laws amended. It changes the term structure itself, from four to five years and from three consecutive terms to two. And it sets a new five-year election cycle. Moving the BSKE to 2028, the Court said, merely implements the new term; it is not an independent objective.
The Supreme Court held that its incidental effect of postponing the elections does not affect the nature of RA 12326, a term-setting law. Macalintal pointed to news headlines calling the law a postponement, and to the explanation given at a media briefing announcing the law’s signing. The Court said a law is what its text says, not how the press describes it. Even the Senate sponsor’s candid admission that “the natural effect will, of course, be to postpone” the elections did not matter. Under 2025 Macalintal Case, a term-setting law may incidentally move the election date without becoming a postponement law.
The Supreme Court also declined to revisit the 2025 Macalintal Case since he was not able to offer compelling reason to revisit the same and for the Court to rule differently less than a year later. The Court held that the doctrine of Stare Decisis prohibits them from revisiting the doctrine when there is no compelling reason to change their ruling that the power to fix term includes the power to determine when term begins and ends.
The Supreme Court also held that the incidental effect of postponing the BSKE to November 2028 is reasonable and not unduly long. First, measured from the October 2023 BSKE, a 2028 election is about five years later, which is exactly the new term. As the Court put it, the interval “is not remote from the term—it is the term.” Second, Congress explained why an earlier date would not work: a 2026 start would collide with the 2031 national elections, and a 2027 BSKE would clash with preparations for May 2028. Third, the law fixes a date certain and a recurring cycle, not an indefinite deferment. The Court admitted that the gap from enactment (September 2026) to the next election (November 2028) is longer than under RA 12232, and called it “a serious consideration,” but held that it does not by itself show Congress exceeded its authority.
The Supreme Court also held that continuity of local governance is a lawful subject, and a uniform five-year term is a reasonable means. Congress need not choose the least disruptive option, nor conduct a study before changing the term. On the purported violation to the right to suffrage, the Court repeated its 2025 holding: an election is “regular” if held at fixed intervals set by law, whether two, three, four or five years.
But for this author, isn’t it that just as the First Macalintal Case set limitations to BSKE postponement, it should set limitations to “term-setting” or “term-fixing” laws so as not to be abused for political agenda in violation to the Constitutional right to suffrage. If a sitting Administration wants to postpone the BSKE, it need not say “postpone.” It can set a seven-year term, with the next election falling seven years after the last. Or it can revert to a four- or five-year term, with a transition that again pushes the next election back. Either way, the law will be titled as “fixing” or “setting” the term. It will amend RA 12326, not RA 9164. It will tweak the term limits. It will list continuity, development planning and election costs as its reasons. It will carry the same separability, appropriation and hold-over clauses. And under 2025 and 2026 Macalintal Cases, its “incidental effect” of postponing the elections will not matter.
The 2023 Macalintal guidelines, which demanded compelling reasons and rejected “election fatigue” and short terms as excuses, remain on the books. But they now bind only a Congress careless enough to call its law a postponement. A Congress that knows these rulings never will.
That is where the right of suffrage under the 1987 Constitution is put at risk. Congress is made up of politicians, and politicians have interests to cater to. Barangay officials are their ground-level machinery. Every postponement keeps that machinery in place without a fresh mandate from the people. When the power to postpone can be exercised freely, so long as it is dressed as a term-setting law, the people’s right to choose their nearest officials at regular intervals depends on how Congress labels its bills. The Court says it will “remain vigilant” against term-setting used as a pretext. With respect, it is hard to see what a pretext would look like if RA 12326 is not one.
The Court is right that it has “neither force nor will, but merely judgment.” Judgment, however, is exactly what the voters needed from the Court. A constitutional right that Congress can avoid by changing the title of a law is a right in name only. Until the Court looks past the label to the effect, Boholanos and every Filipino voter should expect to hear this story again.