Bigger budget, fewer laws in Congress

(Conclusion)

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."

But it is not opposition from various contending parties as much as inaction that kills a bill. Lagman admits that there are proposed laws that stagnate in the House because of indolence: "Inuupuan lang (It’s just sat on)."

This is the fate that befell the Freedom of Access to Information Act, according to Nepomuceno Malaluan, executive director of Action for Economic Reforms and member of Access to Information Network.

Despite the constitutional policy of public disclosure enunciated in Article II, Section 28 of the 1987 Constitution, and the provision in Article II, Section 7 that ensures the right of the people to information on matters of public concern, Congress has yet to come up with the implementing legislation to give teeth to the constitutional mandate.

There are five bills pending in the House of Representatives seeking the implementation of the public’s right to know. Similar bills have been filed as early as the Eighth Congress. Yet, says Malaluan, "we were not as vigilant in pushing for the law."

A noteworthy accomplishment of the 13th Congress, An Act Prohibiting the Imposition of the Death Penalty in the Philippines (RA 9346), would have faced a similar conclusion were it not for the intervention of the executive — underscoring the influence of the administration in legislation, and in spite of the constitutional dictum that all three branches of government are co-equal and separation of powers is delineated.

Lagman, the bill’s main proponent, and other like-minded legislators, had been pushing for the abolition of the death penalty since the Eighth Congress. But the bill was ignored until President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo endorsed the measure, due largely to pressure exerted by the European Union. The bill was passed in two weeks; the bicameral conference committee finished the bill through telephone communication. Quips Lagman: "If Congress wants to fast-track legislation, it can do it."

Socioeconomic bills apparently do not merit the same speed. The Public Debt Ceiling Act, for example, has gone nowhere, even as the national government’s outstanding debt has kept rising. As of March 2007, it was already at P4 trillion.

Presidential Decree 1177 put the debt payment beyond the purview of the General Appropriations Act, thereby ensuring automatic appropriation for debt servicing, which has eaten up as much as 50 percent of the national budget.

According to an Ateneo Macroeconomic Forum Model study, the Philippines is allotting P721.7 billion in debt service, with P340 billion as interest payments alone. This translates to an allocation of P1.98 billion per day, which, says the study, is equivalent to the building of 7,920 classrooms or 250 kilometers of roads per day.

There are proposed bills seeking to repeal the onerous provisions of PD 1177 and to put a cap on expenditures for foreign-debt servicing. A similar bill was filed in the Eighth Congress, but then President Corazon Aquino vetoed it.  In the Ninth Congress, House Speaker de Venecia, in order to block the bill’s passage, promised the release of P200 million of the pork barrel to members of the House.

Lawmaking is a long and tedious process. The victims of martial law human rights violations have learned this the hard way, as they wait for the House of Representatives to pass the bill that would grant them compensation. If the bill is not passed in June, it will be archived. The victims will then have to fight it out again in the 14th Congress, from the gestation period to its desired conclusion: that of being enacted into law.

Prioritization of bills is a legislative prerogative, a political question that cannot be questioned by the executive and the courts. But the ultimate accountability, perhaps, should lie with the people who choose those who sit in Congress.