Congress passes ‘mediocre’ laws worth P227 million each

By Jose Torres Jr.
abs-cbnNEWS.com


FOR SIX months last year, Congress passed 19 “meaningless and mediocre” laws worth P227 million pesos each on the average.

A “rapid assessment” of the performance of the 12th Congress from June to November 2003 revealed that the 19 laws passed by Congress, except for a health bill on smoking, were “of little significance to the protection and promotion of human rights.”

Done by the Philippine Human Rights Information Center (PhilRights) and the Forum on Democratic Options (FDO), a group of basic sector federations, human rights advocates and peoples’ organizations, the study discovered that, on the average, Congress spends P18.4 million daily. Thus, during the period covered by the study, Congress spent, on the average, P2.35 billion.

The General Appropriations Act allocated for Congress – Senate, House of Representatives, House and Senate Electoral Tribunal and Commission on Appointments – P4.49 billion in 2003.

Removing the allocation for the House and Senate Electoral Tribunals and the Commission on Appointments, the budget left for legislation in 2003 was P4.3 billion. The cost, therefore, of the 19 laws passed from June 1, 2003 to the end of November would be on the average P227 million each.


‘Mediocre laws’

Ironically, these expensive laws were described as “mediocre in comparison with other legislative measures that are pending,” Dr. Nymia Simbulan, PhilRights executive director, said.

“They appear to reflect the level and nature of the consensus of the House [of Representatives] and the Senate,” she added.

Two laws, Republic Act 9210 and RA 9217, granted two local non-working holidays – Naga City Day and Roxas Memorial Day in the province of Capiz – “legislations that would have the same effect as a city and provincial ordinance, respectively,” Simbulan said.

Fourteen of these laws were administrative in nature.

· Six laws creating six additional district engineering offices of the Department of Public Works and Highways;
· Six franchise laws (Meralco, Consolidated Broadcasting System, People’s Broadcasting Service, Newsounds Broadcasting Network, Air Philippines, Panay Telephone Corporation);

· One law creating an additional congressional district of Sulu; and

· One law increasing allowances of judges.

The three other laws concerned tourism (permanent citizenship to Filipinos who acquire foreign citizenship), taxes (excise tax on automobiles) and a minor health law against smoking.

“Considering the laws from June 1 to the end of November 2003 were mediocre, this is clearly a waste of people’s money,” Simbulan said.


‘Shocking’

“Shocking.” This was the reaction of Dr. Aurora Parong, executive director of the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP). “Human rights bills do not even pass the committee level,” Parong said.

The bill for the criminalization of torture has not been given attention by Congress. The Automatic Debt Appropriation Act remains in place even as the huge debt burden serves as obstacle to higher budget allocations for health, education and housing. The bill to compensate victims of human rights violations during the martial law years remains un-enacted into law.

“It is shocking to know that Congress has an average expenditure of P18.4 million per day in 2003 even as about 27 million Filipinos do not have food on their tables three times a day,” she added.

If a family of six needs P600 a day for food, housing, education, health and other basic needs, the family needs about P219,000 a year. The cost of one single law passed last year can, therefore, feed, house and assure the basic needs of 1,036 families for a year.

“This is not to say that we should not have a Congress to make laws,” Parong said. “This is just to say that we do not deserve a Congress that spends so much and does too little. We deserve a better Congress,” she added.


Whose to blame?

The PhilRights/FDO study blamed both houses of Congress of enacting the 19 laws that had little significance to the lives of Filipinos.

For the past six months, the House of Representatives filed 526 bills and 233 resolutions while the Senate filed 124 bills and 78 resolutions. Together, 248 legislators filed 961 legislative measures, or an average of 3.87 measures for every legislator. If counted from the start of the 12th Congress, there would be a total of 11,416 measures produced, or an average of 46 legislative measures per lawmaker.

Taken separately as distinct chambers, however, the Senate had a higher average in bills production with an average of 5.6 bills from the total 124 bills filed in the last six months against the House’s average of 2.3 bills from its total of 526 bills.

These numbers, however, do not reflect quality, the study said. They include bills and resolutions that were filed by one or more legislators, bills that the committee filed to consolidate, substitute or revise bills deliberated by both houses of Congress.

The study found out that the origin of most of the 19 “mediocre” measures is the House of Representatives, with only one emanating from the Senate. The representatives, however, can say that they had passed and transmitted to the Senate 967 bills for concurrence and the 18 House measures were the Senate’s choice.

The senators, however, can argue that if Congress hadn’t sent low quality bills, the Senate wouldn’t have picked them up.