Enthusiasm wanes
But the times may have changed, and Nograles’s commitment to pass the FOI Act may have waned. Why or what happened exactly is the mystery that FOI advocates could not decipher at the moment.
However belatedly, the Senate did its part, and eventually overran the House in the final leg of the legislation work. Eighteen months after the House of Nograles passed HB 3732, the 23 senators passed their counterpart FOI Act, Senate Bill No. 3308 on December 14, 2009.
The bicameral conference committee of the two chambers promptly set down to work on a consolidated, reconciled measure last January 20. The committee submitted its report on February 1, and on the same day, with bipartisan support and push from the Senate leadership, the senators ratified the FOI Act.
Yet somehow, for reasons not quite clear for now, the measure was waylaid in the House. On its last session day last February 3 – before lawmakers went on a long break for the election campaign period – the House members failed to ratify the conference committee report that had been signed by all the members of the House panel.
This happened amid internecine floor intramural that day between administration lawmakers from Cebu who sought to block the oath-taking of a rival congressman that the Commission on Elections had declared to be the true winner in the 2007 elections.
Nograles himself said the House failed to ratify the conference committee report because the partisan intramural had triggered a debate on the presence or lack of a quorum in the chamber at the time.
Executive’s directive?
In truth, there was more to the House members’ inaction on the committee report. FOI Act author Tañada and his staff discovered that copies of the bicameral conference committee report had suddenly gone “missing” on February 3 when they checked on the copies for distribution to the House members.
Tañada and his staff were told that the copies were not lost but merely kept there as the session hall had to be rearranged to give way to the necrological services the previous day for former Representative Ernesto Nieva of Manila.
To be sure, only the copies of the bicameral conference committee report were kept literally under the tables of the House members; all other reports on the agenda of the House were prominently and properly placed on top of the tables.
Even more unusual, a congressman who sought a copy of the FOI Act was told by House officials that the instruction from the office of the House Secretary General was to “hold distribution” of the same on that day, the last day before Congress adjourned for the election campaign season.
“I have my own suspicions. I will base it on how it has been hard for me to accomplish what I was set to do,” Tañada told reporters when asked if he thought President Arroyo’s House allies deliberately attempted to prevent the measure from being ratified.
For his part, Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teodoro Casiño said: “This measure would have been the antidote of the House of Representatives and the Senate to ‘executive privilege’ and definitely, the Executive does not want it.”
In Speaker’s hand
The inexplicable failure of the House to ratify the conference committee report has stolen precious time away from what could have been the certain enactment of the FOI Act last February yet.
But all is not lost, according to the authors of the measure and over 130 groups under the Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition of media, civil society and non-government organizations supporting the FOI Act.
The Senate and the House have decided to resume session today, instead of on May 31, to facilitate the earlier canvass of the votes and the proclamation of the country’s next president and vice president.
In the next two weeks, therefore, the Coalition insists that House members may still ratify the conference committee report and swiftly transmit it to Arroyo for signature, and the law could be enacted as a true legacy to democracy of the 14th Congress.
The rules of House allow such a process, before Congress convenes in joint session to sit as the National Board of Canvassers, according to the FOI advocates. In this situation, however, they said Nograles and the House majority leaders will have to step up to plate and prove their leadership.
This is the belief of Bukidnon Rep. Teofisto Guingona III, who has been elected Senator in the 15th Congress. “A lot really depends on him (Nograles), he can make or break it. And I hope he will push for its ratification in the spirit of legacy.”
Said Guingona: “The FOI bill is the best gift that this Congress can give to the new administration and to the Filipino people for the promotion of transparency and good governance.”
Parañaque City Rep. Eduardo Zialcita, vice chair of the House Committee on Public Information, affirms the weight of the FOI Act. “This bill is not an ordinary measure but a legendary one. It would only take two minutes to ratify it.”
According to Zialcita, the House can still move to ratify the FOI Act even during the joint session of the two chambers for the canvassing of votes. “Technically, it can still be done. It can be taken up in the agenda for other matters.”
But Zialcita said the House leadership must ensure that there would be “a critical mass” of lawmakers that would support the bill and oppose any attempts to block its ratification.
Abante, chairman of the public information committee, said he also wants to see the bill signed into law before the 14th Congress fades away. “It will in fact be a feather on my cap because I was one of those who sponsored the measure.”
However, Abante said he is unsure if the Rules of the House would allow the chamber to take up the measure while it is in a joint session with the Senate. “I have to check on the Rules. I think that you can’t tackle a measure from the House if the Senate is there.”
Rules allow it
To lawyer Nepomuceno Malaluan, spokesperson of the Right to Know, Right Now! Campaign, the House must rush to ratify and could do so well within the ambit of its own rules. He said the Rules of the House indeed “allow the ratification of the bicameral conference report on the FOI bill ahead of any other business on the day of the session’s resumption,” Malaluan said.
In particular, he cited that Rule X, Section 61of the House states: “(T)he consideration of conference committee reports shall always be in order, except when the Journal is being read, while the roll is being called, or the House is dividing on any question.”
Akbayan party-list Rep. Walden Bello, meanwhile, sees no complications in having the FOI Act ratified. “It only takes a simple process,” he said.
What worries Bello is not the legislative procedure, which could be swift and painless in fact, but the “forces outside of Congress” that are allegedly working to abort the bill.
“All I know is that a very high officer of the (House) leadership, on the day when we were about to get ratification last February, said explicitly that there were forces that were against the ratification and these were coming from outside Congress,” said Bello.
The party-list lawmaker suspects that these “forces” come from the Executive branch. “This is probably Executive… I think it’s coming from an institutional imperative of secrecy among executive agencies.”
The House’s failure to ratify, Bello said, could only bolster public distrust of the Arroyo administration and fuel talk that it wants to kill the measure because it wants to hide so many secrets from the people.
“Clearly, this would be a major reason for why a bill that has already come to the end of the legislative process is blocked in the end on orders of Malacañang. This is what the people would think… that the administration has something to hide,” said Bello.
Nograles: Kill bill?
While the clock is ticking fast on the long-awaited passage of the measure, FOI advocates in the country and across the globe have now focused their attention on the leaders of the House, and in particular, Nograles.
In their mind, the situation is a test of leadership: Will he kill the bill or give it life?
As of Tuesday, May 18, when the PCIJ sought him out, Nograles’s response to this query remains unsatisfactory.
“I’m not sure, it depends on the mood of the congressmen,” said Nograles, who is one of over a dozen incumbent House members who lost in the last elections. Nograles lost his mayoralty bid to incumbent Davao City Vice Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio.
Nograles said the measure might not be taken up on the floor during the joint session of Congress for the canvassing of votes. “We cannot tackle anything except the canvass.”
Malaluan and the FOI advocates, on the other hand, assert that the House may still ratify the measure today, when it convenes as a separate chamber to finalize the procedures for the canvassing of votes. The senators and congressmen are scheduled to sit in joint session as the National Board of Canvassers starting tomorrow (May 25) yet.
Then again, according to Nograles, if ever there’s time to tackle the measure, he said, “it has to be during the closing ceremonies (of the session) on June 4.”
The question that PCIJ posted next was: Will Nograles the Speaker push for the FOI Act to be ratified?
Nograles’s reply: “I’ll try. It depends on the mood of the congressmen. Maraming natalo, maraming nanalo. (Many have lost and many have won the elections).” – PCIJ, May 2010 (Bulatlat.com)
