Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. emerged yesterday morning from seven days of self-imposed quarantine, removing his surgical mask as he began his keynote address at the 25th annual convention of the All Workers Alliance Trade Union (AWATU).
The keynote address was De Venecia’s first public appearance since his return from Shanghai, China last week.
De Venecia showed no influenza-like symptoms associated with the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) a week after he and the 10-member House of Representatives delegation to the first-ever Philippine Trade Exhibition in Shanghai returned to Manila.
"I am ending my voluntary quarantine and I don’t have the SARS infection," de Venecia said.
De Venecia added he spoke with Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit Friday night and was given the green light by the health chief to end his self-imposed isolation.
Besides watching live coverage of the Iraq conflict, De Venecia said he maintained regular phone contact with President Arroyo, members of Congress and other key government officials.
The Speaker went into voluntary quarantine to set the example for all Filipinos returning from SARS hot-spots, like Guangdong and Hong Kong in China, Hanoi in Vietnam, Taiwan and Singapore, to take precautionary steps in preventing the spread of the SARS virus.
De Venecia traveled to Shanghai on March 27 to open the Philippine trade exhibition, which featured over 160 Philippine export producers and service providers in a major move to penetrate the Chinese market of over 1.2 billion people.
De Venecia admitted that while he was under voluntary quarantine, he spent most of his time watching live reports on the war in Iraq.
"I am urging (Iraqi) President Saddam Hussein to declare Baghdad an open city to prevent further loss of lives," De Venecia told reporters after his AWATU address.
As United States-led forces gained control of the Saddam International Airport in Baghdad, de Venecia said, he realized there is a need to declare the Iraqi capital an open city to prevent further carnage when coalition troops enter the city.
The Speaker also urged the US-led coalition forces and Iraqi troops alike to cease hostilities for 12 hours so they can assess their positions and pave the way for possible negotiations.
"Every side must take a 12-hour pause, the Iraq forces must be given time to reassess their position," de Venecia said.
However, he refused to comment if there is a need for Iraqi forces to surrender. De Venecia said it is up to the coalition and Iraqi troops to determine who will emerge the victor in the Iraq war.
As the final battle for Baghdad looms, de Venecia sees the need for a lull in hostilities. "There must be a way to prevent unnecessary loss of lives."
Shifting to a more familiar topic, De Venecia again put in his bid for Charter change in order to convert the present presidential form of government to a parliamentary federal system.
According to him, the presidential form of government is the most corrupt system — breeding corruption from the local level all the way to the highest post in the land.
"The candidates (for the presidency) will borrow and commit acts of corruption to raise money for the elections," he said in Filipino.
Every election, De Venecia said, candidates for various electoral posts spend a lot of money to win and, when they are already in office, they must find ways to raise money for the next polls.
According to him, successful economies, such as those of the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom and practically all European countries, as well as China, India and East Timor have adopted the parliamentary system of government.
He also said the presidential system has too many chambers of Congress. Having two legislative chambers, the Speaker said, results in delays in the approval of urgent measures needed to speed up the country’s economic growth.
With the present system, De Venecia said, it takes several years for a single bill to be enacted into law, since it must first pass through the House of Representatives before it is submitted to the Senate – after which the bill is deliberated upon by a bicameral conference committee. All this, before the bill is sent to the President for approval.
De Venecia said it took 10 years before the newly enacted Absentee Voting Law was approved. Other economic measures pending deliberations are the national railway bill and other urgent economic measures, he said.
To attain the success enjoyed by other economies, de Venecia said, Congress must work on amending the 1987 Constitution and change the country’s form of government to a parliamentary federal system.
This developed as the AWATU expressed support for Constitutional reform shifting the present system of governance from presidential to parliamentary.
According to the AWATU resolution supporting Charter change, "there is an urgent need to amend certain provisions of our present Constitution, particularly the present form of our government, to make it more responsive and effective to meet the present radical changes in the field of politics, economics, finance (and) peace and order, including (the) international problem (of) terrorism... which the present form of government cannot adequately meet because of the restrictions built in (the Charter)."