Short answer. Yes. Where the Punong Barangay is unavailable to act on an application, the Act provides that any available Barangay Kagawad shall act on it. An order issued by a Kagawad must be accompanied by his attestation that the Punong Barangay was unavailable at the time it was issued.
What the law says
If the Punong Barangay is unavailable to act on the application for a BPO, the application shall be acted upon by any available Barangay Kagawad.
RA 9262, Section 14 — Barangay Protection Orders. Read the full provision →
The substitution is built into the Act
This is not an improvisation by a helpful official; it is written into the provision, and the wording is shall be acted upon. The Act does not want an application waiting on one person's diary, so it names the alternative in advance and does not require you to establish where the Punong Barangay has gone or how long he will be away. Nor does it rank the Kagawads — the test is availability. If you are told to come back another day, this is the sentence to point to.
The attestation is what makes a Kagawad's order complete
There is one extra formality, and it is worth knowing because it appears on your copy. An order issued by a Kagawad must be accompanied by that Kagawad's attestation that the Punong Barangay was unavailable at the time of issuance. That attestation is the record of why a Kagawad acted at all. When you are handed the order, check that it is there rather than discovering later that it is missing, and keep the two documents together.
Nothing else about the order changes
A Kagawad's order is not a lesser instrument. It is still issued on the date of filing after an ex parte determination of the basis of the application, meaning the respondent is not heard beforehand. It is still served personally on the respondent immediately after issuance, by the issuing official or by a barangay official directed to effect service. It still runs for fifteen days, and it must still carry the printed warning that violating it is punishable by law. You may be accompanied by a non-lawyer advocate in the proceeding.
If nobody at the barangay acts at all
The Act treats inaction as a matter of accountability: failing to act on an application for a protection order within the period it specifies, without justifiable cause, renders the official or the judge administratively liable. Separately, applications of this kind are to be scheduled and heard above other business. And the court route does not depend on the barangay having done anything — an application to the court with territorial jurisdiction over where you live, or the family court there, stands on its own.
Related provisions
- RA 9262, Section 10 — Where To Apply
- RA 9262, Section 18 — Mandatory Period To Act
- RA 9262, Section 20 — Priority Of Applications