DISMAL QUALITY AND QUANTITY

In any case, House Speaker Jose de Venecia has said the Senate is to blame for the declining number of laws passed. In a Lower House accomplishment report from July 2005 to June 2006, he pointed out that the Senate had failed to act on more than 820 bills submitted to it by the House of Representatives.

	SENATE TO BLAME. House Speaker Jose de Venecia has blamed the Senate for the declining number of laws passed, pointing out that the Upper Chamber had failed to act on more than 820 bills submitted by the House of Representatives. [photo from The Rulemakers]

Political analyst Ramon Casiple, however, says the Senate simply had no time to work on the bills because these had been submitted to it at the last minute. Still, he says, both Houses are equally guilty for the low output, and should not play the blame game “to gain political points against each other.”

As it is, legislators themselves admit that the fewer and fewer laws Congress has been passing have been far from perfect. Commenting on those passed by the 13th Congress, Representative Edcel Lagman of the 1st District of Albay says, “There is not much deliberation on the bills. This is why, what is harnessed as a final version might be defective or of inferior quality.” 

This observation is shared by Representative Nereus Acosta, Jr. of the 1st District of Bukidnon. “Dismal” is how he characterized the present Congress’s legislative performance. Acosta, who has been a member of the House of Representatives for three consecutive terms, observes that Congress is no longer conducive to policy deliberations; it has become a venue for political bickering. 

Abad agrees. “Deliberations in the House of Representatives are bereft of policy discussions,” she says. “Congress is no longer a marketplace for ideas but a marketplace in haggling for funds for our respective districts.” 

Lack of a clear legislative agenda only contributes to Congress’s deteriorating performance. The Rulemakers showed a determined president who has specific legislative objectives could have an impact on Congress’s performance. The Ninth and 10th Congresses under the Ramos presidency posted the best legislative record since 1986.

The 13th Congress convened in the middle of a political crisis, amid the question of legitimacy on the Philippine presidency. At the opening of the 2nd Regular Session of the 13th Congress, the Speaker of the House had only one clear legislative goal: a shift in the country’s political system to federalism. Asked what the priorities of the 13th Congress were, Acosta replies, “I’m not even sure if Congress had priorities.”

LANGUISHING LAWS

It is no surprise then that important pieces of legislation are largely overlooked. One of those bills has been House Bill 3773, or the Responsible Parenthood and Population Management Act of 2005. The bill, once approved, would set in place a national policy that assures adequate and continuing information on reproductive health and a full range of family-planning methods. 

The projected Philippine population for 2007, according to the National Statistics Office, is 88.7 million, which makes the country the 12th most populous nation in the world. The Philippines has no comprehensive national policy on population management in place despite the fact that many Filipinos would appreciate one. According to a recent Pulse Asia survey, nine of 10 Filipinos want the government to provide budgetary support for modern methods of family planning. 

	Senator Neptali Gonzales (right) delivers a speech in 1987 while Joseph estrada (extreme left) yawns. Senate sessions are generally better attended than those in the House, where most days, there is no quorum. [photo from The Rulemakers]

Foot-dragging on the bill is largely because of “the obstructionist opposition of the Catholic hierarchy,” says Lagman, the bill’s principal author. The bill was co-authored by 112 representatives, or almost half the Lower House’s membership. But the counterpart measure in the Senate has not moved because, Lagman says, “the Senate has a nationwide constituency and they are more affected by the critical attitude of the Church.”

Another bill that has faced serious opposition, this time from the legislators themselves, is the Anti-Political Dynasty Bill. The Philippines has a direct constitutional proscription against the establishment of political dynasties. But 20 years after the adoption of the 1987 Constitution, Congress has yet to enact into law the implementing legislation required by the charter’s Article II, Section 26. For sure the bill had been filed and prioritized time and again as early as the Eighth Congress. Yet with the 13th Congress coming to a close, the bill faces the bleak prospect of being archived for the nth time. 

There is at least one political family in almost every province. Nearly 80 percent of the members of the 13th Congress are from political families, according to a GMA Network News Research study. That the Anti-Dynasty Bill has been stuck in a rut for this long is most probably due to the fact that 166 district representatives — or eight out of 10 — are not about to pass legislation that would go against their interest.

Another important piece of legislation that remains pending is the Land Use Act, despite it being categorized as a priority bill since the Ninth Congress. The bill seeks to provide guidelines and criteria for land use based on an assessment of the development needs of competing sectors. There are at least seven pending bills on land use in the 13th Congress alone. No less than the Speaker of the House is the author of the bill in one of its many incarnations. The abstract of House Bill 272 is telling: “There is an urgent need for a land use code that will allocate land to various competing uses, preserve prime farm lands specially irrigated fields for agricultural purposes, and ensure community participation in defining local land use.”

Representative Loretta Ann Rosales of the party-list group Akbayan Citizens’ Action Party offers this as reason why the bill has not moved: “The members of this Congress are owners of real estate businesses.”