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First Six Months of the 13th Congress
The 13th
Congress has used up almost a third of its term, reportedly spends
millions a day for its legislative work and still has tons of work to do.
It must now work double pace if it would like to compensate for lost time
– as some of its members undoubtedly do.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN
REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Supposedly, the
significance of a House of Representatives in a government with a
bicameral legislature lies in having a set of lawmakers directly
representing specific geographical groups or social sectors, as opposed to
a Senate in which a smaller number of solons normally share the task of
representing the entire nation. Those in the so-called lower House are
supposedly closer to the people.
It is thus important
and timely to assess the 13th Congress. Enough time has passed
to project what is to be expected of those supposed to be direct
representatives of the people for this year, based on what they have done
so far.
Of the 3,552 bills filed from
the day the House convened on July 1 to Dec. 31, 2004, 1,225 or a good
34.49 percent are of purely local scope. An example is House Bill No.
00007 or “An Act Establishing A National High School in Barangay Sisim,
Municipality of Cabugao, Province of Ilocos Sur to be Known as the SISIM
National High School and Appropriating Funds Therefore.”
Meanwhile, there are
11 House concurrent resolutions all calling for amendments to the 1987
Constitution.
The basic way to
assess the performance of the 13th Congress thus far would be
to look back at how it responded to the pressing issues that confronted
the people during the period.
Revenue measures, debt and fiscal
crisis
In her State of the
Nation Address (SoNA) July 26, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo urged
Congress to pass eight new revenue measures: an increase in specific taxes
on petroleum products, a two-step increase in the value-added tax,
indexation to inflation of excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco products,
rationalization of fees and charges, the institutionalization of a lateral
attrition law, the imposition of a tax on text messages, shift from net to
gross income taxation, and the granting of general tax amnesty with the
submission of statements of assets and liabilities (SALs). These revenue
measures, Macapagal-Arroyo said, are intended to generate P80 billion in
additional government funds.
The imposition of the
eight revenue measures was vigorously opposed by cause-oriented groups and
nationalist economists, who argued that the government could earn more
money by renegotiating the country’s debts and repudiating the odious
loans, fixing the tax collection system, curbing corruption, and
abandoning externally-imposed economic policies promoting tariff removal.
The tax on text
messages, in particular, became a highly sensitive consumer issue, and so
vehement were the protests against it that even House Speaker Jose de
Venecia was driven to make a categorical statement opposing it. The
Philippines is said to be the world’s “texting capital.”
Meanwhile, Bayan Muna
(People First) Rep. Satur Ocampo filed a bill seeking to repeal the
Automatic Appropriations Act. In this issue, he found an ally in Parañaque
City Rep. Eduardo Zialcita (Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats). Both
Zialcita and Quezon City Rep. Edcel Lagman have filed bills and
resolutions calling for an audit of the country’s foreign debt – which, as
of last year, mathematically translated to a P41,000 debt for every
Filipino.
Another Bayan Muna
representative, Teddy Casiño, contributed to this campaign by authoring a
resolution opposing the imposition of any new tax measure without the
government taking remedial steps to address the factors for the drying-up
of funds. He also filed a resolution seeking inquiry into the government’s
yearly revenue losses due to tax leakage, and recommending that the
government undertake remedial measures before considering the imposition
of new taxes.
His resolutions
gained massive support in the House: among those who signed it were
administration congressmen, such as Prospero Pichay and Juan Miguel Zubiri.
A number of
congressmen who supported the resolution expressed interest in getting
involved with the broad-based Alliance of Concerned Citizens Opposed to
Unjust New Taxes (ACCOUNT).
Congress was able to
approve only the indexation to inflation of the excise tax on alcohol and
tobacco products as of end-2004.
The elimination of
tariffs on imported goods stems from globalization policies imposed by the
International Monetary Fund-World Bank (IMF-WB) and the World Trade
Organization (WTO). Anakpawis (Toiling Masses) Rep. Rafael Mariano has a
bill seeking to remove Philippine agriculture from the WTO framework –
which, unfortunately, is still pending.
Wage increase and
labor/peasant rights
The results of the social
survey by the Social Weather Station (SWS) for the third quarter of 2004,
showing that 15 percent of Filipino families spent an entire day with
nothing to eat during the period, highlighted the need for a P125
across-the-board wage increase for workers and an increase in the farmgate
price of palay (unmilled rice) as immediate economic relief for the
country’s poorest sectors – who comprise 88 percent of the population
based on studies by the socio-economic think tank IBON Foundation. These
also stressed the need to address the problem of land-grabbing in the
rural areas.
House Bill 345, which
provides for a P125 ($2.23 based on a $1:P56 exchange rate) wage increase
– authored by Rep. Roseller Barinaga (2D Zamboanga del Norte, Nationalist
People’s Coalition or NPC) in consolidation with Anakpawis Reps. Crispin
Beltran and Mariano, Casiño, and Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP) Rep. Liza
Maza – has been approved by the House Committee on Labor and is up for
second reading.
Lest this be mistaken
for a piece of good news, it must be recalled that the P125 wage increase
bill had been filed in the 12th Congress (2001-2004) but did
not go anywhere – just like the bill providing for compensation for human
rights victims under the Marcos regime. It was among the first to be
introduced in the 13th Congress but is still pending in spite
of the measure’s urgency.
Also a concern of
workers is the lack of security of tenure under the program of
contractualization. Maza and Zubiri (3D Bukidnon, Lakas-CMD) both have
bills seeking to strengthen the right to security of tenure.
The Maza bill aims to
address the current practice of contractualization. It stipulates that an
employee is deemed regular “from the time he is engaged to perform
activities by the employer whether or not such activities are necessary or
desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer except where the
employment is fixed for a specific project the completion of which has
been determined at the time of hiring.” It also declares probationary and
casual employment as illegal.
On the other hand,
the Zubiri bill considers it as an unfair labor practice “to classify as
casual, contractual, subcontractor, or labor-only contracting, employees
who are regular by virtue of their activities.”
Mariano, meanwhile,
has filed bills providing for farmers’ rights to land and security of
tenure. He has resolutions calling for a moratorium on land use conversion
“if warranted.”
The Maza and Zubiri
bills are still pending, as well as Mariano’s bills and resolutions.
Oil and power
Meanwhile, the
continuous increase in prices of petroleum products and power rates have
triggered mass protests and an increasing clamor for remedial measures to
the deregulation of the downstream oil industry and the Electric Power
Industry Reform Act (EPIRA).
Beltran has a bill
seeking to repeal the Downstream Oil Industry Deregulation Act of 1996.
Rep. Robert Ace Barbers (2ndD Surigao del Norte, Lakas-CMD) has a
resolution urging the government to buy back its 11-percent shares in the
Petron oil corporation. Rep. Jacinto Paras (1D Negros Oriental, Lakas-CMD)
has HB 3259, which seeks to protect consumers from “uncontrolled,
unjustified and arbitrary increases” in the prices of petroleum products.
Beltran also has a
bill seeking to repeal the EPIRA. Meanwhile, Partido ng Manggagawa (PM or
Worker’s Party) Rep. Renato Magtubo has HR 180, directing the Committees
on Government Corporations and Public Enterprises and on Energy “to
jointly conduct an inquiry, in aid of legislation, on the power sector's
financials, including impact scenarios of proposed power rate increases.”
Sadly, however, these
measures are still pending.
2005 budget
The 2005 budget is
another gauge of the 13th Congress’ performance in its first
six months.
In late December the
House approved the proposed 2005 budget – after deliberating on it for
four months. Those attending the hearings on the Nov. 16 massacre of
striking workers at Hacienda Luisita, the Cojuangco/Aquino-owned sugar
plantation in Tarlac (120 kms. north of Manila), found it exasperating
that the proceedings at one point had to be cut short because there were
still budget deliberations to be held.
The 2005 budget is
now in the Senate and President Macapagal-Arroyo is hopeful that it will
be approved by February. Of the P907.6-billion budget, P309.7 billion is
allocated for the servicing of debt interest; while the combined budgets
of the Departments of Education (DepEd), Public Works and Highways (DPWH),
Agrarian Reform (DAR), and Health (DoH) amount to only P185.03 billion.
The 2005 budget also
carries appropriations for pork barrel, an issue that became controversial
in mid-2004 amid debates on corruption and the fiscal crisis.
Wanting
The late activist and
film director Lino Brocka became famous, among other things, for a film
titled Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (You were Weighed but Found
Wanting). Were Brocka alive today, he might have said the same of the 13th
Congress’ performance during its first six months.
While there were what
may be looked upon as a few bright spots in the 13th Congress’
performance for its first six months, it did not – as a whole – respond as
urgently as it should have to the pressing issues that confronted the
people during the period in question. Misprioritization still hounds its
work, as evidenced by the urgent legislative measures that remain pending
with their respective committees.
The 13th
Congress has used up almost a third of its term, reportedly spends
millions a day for its legislative work and still has tons of work to do.
It must now work double pace if it would like to compensate for lost time
– as some of its members undoubtedly do. Bulatlat
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© 2004 Bulatlat
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