Palace keeping hands off barangay-SK election sked row

Malacañang is still keeping its hands off the mess involving moves to postpone the elections for village and youth council officials scheduled for October 29. Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Sergio Apostol said Tuesday the Palace will "wait and see" what the Senate will do, now that the House passed a bill to reschedule the polls. "Malacañang will not take a stand on the matter yet. The Senate may yet disapprove it, so why should we take a stand now?" Apostol said in Filipino on dzEC radio. The Lower House passed Monday a bill seeking to postpone the October 29 elections to the second Monday of May 2009. For their part, many village chiefs had expressed concerns that should their terms end because elections might not be held this year, a power vacuum would occur if the elections are postponed. Some senators had opposed the idea of postponing the elections. When asked if the Palace considers the matter a priority for now, Apostol said, "ah, hindi (ah, no)." - GMANews.TV