Failure of bicameralism and other sorrows
Credit to Author: YEN MAKABENTA| Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2019 16:47:43 +0000
“The Senate has the strongest minority of any minority on earth, and the weakest majority of any on earth.”
— American senator
First word
THE US senator in my epigraph might as well have been describing the Philippine Senate of our 18th Congress.
With only 24 members, it has stymied the passage of the national budget for the present year. It has managed to put the pork or earmarks of individual senators front and center in budget deliberations.
The chamber leadership has no identity together, having been cobbled together from a patchwork of parties. A single senator can screw up the consideration of bills or doom them to defeat on just his say-so or opposition.
This period in national history bids to be remembered as the longest gridlock in history, and probably the costliest.
If President Duterte makes good on his threat to veto the 2019 national budget after Lent, we will see firsthand the failure of bicameralism in our constitutional system. It will be as crippling to national life as the government shutdowns that have periodically hobbled the US government.
The Senate may need the grace of a resurrection.
Just live with it
The President issued the threat during a campaign rally in Bacolod City earlier this week.
He said: “The budget has just been submitted to me. I have to sign it once I return. I am still studying the budget [which was submitted to the] Office of the President. The Office of the President is not the budget.…
“So, ang legal ko magbasa uli. Ngayon, pagka talagang tagilid ’yan (My legal team is reading it. Now, if it is problematic), I will outright veto the entire budget,” he added.
Duterte noted that the House of Representatives and Senate have been bickering over alleged insertions in the budget.
“Hindi magkasundo ang Congress pati ang Senado eh, pati ’yung mga insertions diyan, titingnan ko (Congress and Senate cannot reach an agreement. I will look at the insertions),” the Chief Executive said.
“Pagka tagilid talaga (If it is really problematic), I will not hesitate to veto the entire budget. Eh, ’di pasensya tayong lahat (We just have to live with it),” he added.
Bickering of House and Senate
The passage of the spending bill was hampered by the mudslinging among lawmakers and between some House members and the budget department.
Because of the delayed appropriations law, the government has been operating on a reenacted budget since the start of the year.
A reenacted budget until April will bring down full-year economic growth to 6.1 to 6.3 percent, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA). Economic growth is expected to slow down to 4.9 to 5.1 percent if the budget is enacted in August and to 4.2 to 4.9 percent if no new spending bill is passed this year.
An earlier advisory that the President may sign the budget on Monday was abruptly withdrawn. Now, according to presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo, the President could sign it after the Holy Week break, which effectively means after Easter Sunday, April 21.
Bicameralism object of ambivalence
Troubled relations between the two chambers of the Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives, principally account for the budget impasse.
The 1986 Constitutional Commission, which drafted the 1987 Constitution, decided to adopt a shift from the unicameral to a bicameral legislature in the new Charter. The change passed by a margin of one vote in the Concom. The main impetus for the change was the desire of many members and no doubt, of President Cory Aquino herself, to restore the Philippine Senate in the government system, whose members would be elected nationally.
They wanted the chamber to serve again as a training ground for future leaders, and guard against ill-considered legislation.
According to Concom member Jose N. Nolledo in his account of the work of the Concom: “Those who objected to a bicameral legislature had very good arguments. They raised the arguments of simplicity and economy and pointed out that the presidential veto power is sufficient check for hasty and ill-considered measures. They warned that the deadlocks between the two houses might prove disadvantageous and truly wasteful.”
Nolledo also cited the broad historical background of the Philippine legislature: “We began with a unicameral legislature in the form of the Philippine Commission in 1902; then under the Jones Law, we shifted to a bicameral legislature with the Philippine Commission as the upper house and the Philippine Assembly as the lower house; but under the1935 Constitution, we returned to a unicameral body which lasted for about six years because in 1940, our Constitution was amended reverting to a bicameral legislature. The 1973 Constitution returned to the unicameral body, and the 1986 Constitutional commission decided to adopt the bicameral system.”
Concom member Florangel Braid offered this rationale for bicameralism: “The system balances social and political interests. The senators being elected nationwide represented national interest while the congressmen of the lower house represented the interests of their respective districts. A chain of checks and balances is made systematically when the lower house passes a bill, the upper house scrutinizes it well, the President studying it for possible veto, and the Supreme Court analyzing it on its constitutionality.”
Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J., another Concom member, cited the reasoning behind bicameralism in his book, A Living Constitution (Ateneo de Manila University Press, Quezon City, 2003): “One of the reasons for opting for a bicameral body is precisely to allow the two houses to check each other. Neither house may allow itself to be gobbled up by the other — even if the other has a yawning insatiable maw. The Senate, if it maintains its dignity and honor and fidelity to its popular mandate, must not allow itself to be swallowed by the larger House. To do so is to betray a public trust.”
Problem began with senators’ pork
Talking about, honor, dignity and mandate is fine. The problem began when the senators started coveting also their own pork barrel or earmarks, as they looked with envy at the appropriations from public works projects secured by lower house members for their respective districts.
Originally, the House lobbied only for a Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) to be distributed among the 250 districts represented
in the Congress. The senators lobbied for their own share, to the tune of P200 million per senator, and set it as a condition for their support of the appropriations bill.
The senatorial demand turned PDAF into a monstrosity. When the Supreme Court looked at PDAF, the justices said PDAF on its face was unconstitutional.
The ruling was crushing. Despite the ruling, however, some legislators were undeterred.
Especially the then senator Alan Peter Cayetano who went around telling his fellow legislators not to lose heart. He or someone came up with the idea of making “insertions” in the appropriations act to restore the pork barrel.
It was in these circumstances that “insertions” became a standard stratagem of lawmakers to secure pork.
Facing Duterte
Now, the lawmakers and their insertions must face President Duterte and his pen, eyeball to eyeball.
If as I hope and believe, the President uses his veto to strike down pork insertions in the 2019 national budget, he will signal a new beginning in the responsible preparation and legislation of the annual general appropriations act.
He will effectively protect as he has promised the people’s money from the predators in the Congress.
He will commence the observance of fiscal prudence in the conduct of government. For months, he has gone after officials who wasted public funds on travel perks abroad. Now, he will go after the gargantuan appropriations from lawmakers who defraud the people of infinitely more public money.
yenmakabenta@yahoo.com
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