Suicide notes
Suicide notes
Posted 00:03am (Mla time) Mar 06, 2005
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 6, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE CONTROVERSIAL passage of the 2005 national budget is an object-lesson in politics as practiced in the Philippines. The details paint a vivid portrait of the two houses of Congress as they actually conduct their business: paying lip service to motherhood principles, for instance, and then using the resources of the legislative process itself to pursue their self-interest. Or maneuvering against each other to minimize a perceived disadvantage, and then launching a preemptive war of perceptions.
As we pointed out yesterday, the suggestion from Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago that legislators commit mass suicide as a form of public service is redundant; our lawmakers have done a masterful job of shooting themselves fatally in the foot. But there are at least two vital lessons to be learned from this orgy of self-destruction.
Legislative veterans know that the real action is in the "third chamber." We have known this for years; a legislative measure takes final shape in the bicameral conference committee, when differences between Senate and House versions are reconciled. What all too few of us knew-before the budget controversy erupted-was that the entire, elaborate machinery for approving a bill in one house, from first to third readings, from committee hearings to plenary debates, had become a mere first step, an initial negotiating gambit, for the horse-trading that takes place in the bicam. In other words, for legislative veterans, the "action" in the respective chambers is almost irrelevant.
That is why the House can pass its version of the General Appropriations Act, which was essentially the same as the one submitted by Malacañang, and which, among many other details, pared congressional pork barrel allocations down from P70 million to P40 million each. Why? Because the House leadership promised to restore the original amounts during the bicam.
Some congressmen, like Cavite Rep. Gilbert Remulla, have said as much. "It will be a big headache for the House leadership. What happens now to its commitments to the membership that their concerns would be addressed at the bicameral conference committee?" Other congressmen have implied it by their intemperate reaction. House Majority Leader Prospero Nograles, for instance, rashly called for the Senate's abolition, only because the Senate's adoption of the House version of the budget, in toto, had upset the House leaders' political calculus. And at least one congressman, Taguig-Pateros Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano, asked the House leadership to admit that it had miscalculated, for forcing the passage of the Malacañang version in the first place.
All these prove that when the House passed its version last year, congressmen had no intention of honoring the reduction in the pork barrel they had promised with much fanfare. Their plan was to restore the original amounts in the bicam, or to stall until a reenactment of the 2003 budget, with the old allotments, became inevitable.
The "dignity of the chamber" covers a multitude of sins. The whole hoary notion of "institutional dignity" may be at the root of the Senate's extraordinary decision to recall the approval of its version of the budget, and then to adopt that of the House. Opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson's untimely disclosure of the Senate's attempt to "reclassify" P1.3 billion in non-military intelligence funds, aired on the same day President Macapagal-Arroyo rebuked both houses of Congress for the budget impasse, presented the Senate with a public relations nightmare.
Some commentators believe that Lacson was merely confused. Even granting that on the one issue the former presidential candidate has followed most closely, he had jumped to an unwarranted conclusion, the damage was still all too real. And "institutional dignity" required that the Senate move to contain it-even at the cost of undoing all the work done in the last two months.
"Just because they were caught by one of their members, the only way they can divert attention from their own shame is to slap us with dirt that should properly cling to their faces," publisher-congressman Teodoro Locsin Jr. thundered on the floor of the House. But because Locsin, too was defending the dignity of his chamber, his remarks naturally become suspect.
That is what happens when-to extend Bismarck's metaphor-lawmakers bring the entire sausage factory crashing down on themselves.
Posted 00:03am (Mla time) Mar 06, 2005
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 6, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE CONTROVERSIAL passage of the 2005 national budget is an object-lesson in politics as practiced in the Philippines. The details paint a vivid portrait of the two houses of Congress as they actually conduct their business: paying lip service to motherhood principles, for instance, and then using the resources of the legislative process itself to pursue their self-interest. Or maneuvering against each other to minimize a perceived disadvantage, and then launching a preemptive war of perceptions.
As we pointed out yesterday, the suggestion from Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago that legislators commit mass suicide as a form of public service is redundant; our lawmakers have done a masterful job of shooting themselves fatally in the foot. But there are at least two vital lessons to be learned from this orgy of self-destruction.
Legislative veterans know that the real action is in the "third chamber." We have known this for years; a legislative measure takes final shape in the bicameral conference committee, when differences between Senate and House versions are reconciled. What all too few of us knew-before the budget controversy erupted-was that the entire, elaborate machinery for approving a bill in one house, from first to third readings, from committee hearings to plenary debates, had become a mere first step, an initial negotiating gambit, for the horse-trading that takes place in the bicam. In other words, for legislative veterans, the "action" in the respective chambers is almost irrelevant.
That is why the House can pass its version of the General Appropriations Act, which was essentially the same as the one submitted by Malacañang, and which, among many other details, pared congressional pork barrel allocations down from P70 million to P40 million each. Why? Because the House leadership promised to restore the original amounts during the bicam.
Some congressmen, like Cavite Rep. Gilbert Remulla, have said as much. "It will be a big headache for the House leadership. What happens now to its commitments to the membership that their concerns would be addressed at the bicameral conference committee?" Other congressmen have implied it by their intemperate reaction. House Majority Leader Prospero Nograles, for instance, rashly called for the Senate's abolition, only because the Senate's adoption of the House version of the budget, in toto, had upset the House leaders' political calculus. And at least one congressman, Taguig-Pateros Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano, asked the House leadership to admit that it had miscalculated, for forcing the passage of the Malacañang version in the first place.
All these prove that when the House passed its version last year, congressmen had no intention of honoring the reduction in the pork barrel they had promised with much fanfare. Their plan was to restore the original amounts in the bicam, or to stall until a reenactment of the 2003 budget, with the old allotments, became inevitable.
The "dignity of the chamber" covers a multitude of sins. The whole hoary notion of "institutional dignity" may be at the root of the Senate's extraordinary decision to recall the approval of its version of the budget, and then to adopt that of the House. Opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson's untimely disclosure of the Senate's attempt to "reclassify" P1.3 billion in non-military intelligence funds, aired on the same day President Macapagal-Arroyo rebuked both houses of Congress for the budget impasse, presented the Senate with a public relations nightmare.
Some commentators believe that Lacson was merely confused. Even granting that on the one issue the former presidential candidate has followed most closely, he had jumped to an unwarranted conclusion, the damage was still all too real. And "institutional dignity" required that the Senate move to contain it-even at the cost of undoing all the work done in the last two months.
"Just because they were caught by one of their members, the only way they can divert attention from their own shame is to slap us with dirt that should properly cling to their faces," publisher-congressman Teodoro Locsin Jr. thundered on the floor of the House. But because Locsin, too was defending the dignity of his chamber, his remarks naturally become suspect.
That is what happens when-to extend Bismarck's metaphor-lawmakers bring the entire sausage factory crashing down on themselves.
posted by Dante at 6:18 PM
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