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Speaker Prospero Nograles Jr. is all locked up on passing a law
extending the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) despite
the failure of the First Regular Session to enact one before the
adjournment sine die of the First Regular Session on June 11.
Nograles said that while the 10-year extension
of CARP expired on June 10, Congress has appropriated funds for its
implementation until December 31, 2008. He said that this gives the
14th Congress enough time to pass a new CARP. In addition, CARP also
gets funds from money and assets recovered by the Presidential
Commission on Good Government from the so-called ill-gotten wealth
of the Marcoses and their cronies.
Before the House adjourned on June 11, it passed
Joint Resolution No. 21 authored by Nograles declaring that the land
acquisition and distribution component of CARP is effective until
year-end. Unlike an ordinary resolution, which merely expresses the
sentiments of a chamber, a joint resolution has the force and effect
of a law once passed by both chambers. This House move, however,
came too late and gave no time for the Senate to act on it before
adjournment. The resolution still had to be referred to a Senate
committee, which had to schedule a public hearing. What’s more, it
is not certain to get the Senate nod, considering the failure of the
Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to provide the Senate Committee
on Agrarian Reform headed by Sen. Gringo Honasan the reports
requested by Senators Joker Arroyo, Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Juan
Ponce Enrile and Rodolfo Biazon.
Joker and JPE agree that CARP can go on until
year-end because it has been provided with funds. However, unlike
the House, they believe that land acquisition and distribution
expired when Congress failed to extend CARP before June 10. JPE said
that the appropriated funds could be used only for providing support
services to present beneficiaries of CARP. The Supreme Court alone
can settle this issue on whether DAR can continue with acquiring and
distributing new lands until Dec. 31, 2008.
A new department mulled
The House has passed on second reading a bill
creating a Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT),
which will be carved out of the Department of Transportation and
Communications. Sen. Edgardo Angara is looking forward to a similar
action by the Senate. Angara, the chairman of the Senate Committee
on Science and Technology, has already endorsed the counterpart bill
authored by Sen. Loren Legarda. A technical working group will meet
this Friday to draft the committee report endorsing Loren’s Senate
Bill 920.
Angara had long foreseen the significance of
technology not only to national growth but also to making the
Philippines globally competitive. His endorsement of the creation of
a DICT reflects this mindset. In the previous Congress, he had also
authored the law creating the Joint Congressional Commission on
Science, Technology and Engineering (Comste). Incidentally, the six
panels of Comste submitted a preliminary report in an en banc
meeting on June 10. I’ll give a report about their recommendations
in my future columns.
The amorphous political parties
The composition of the Senate panel to the
Commission on Appointment (CA) portrays the amorphous character of
Philippine political parties. The Constitution provides that
membership in the CA should be apportioned proportionally among the
political parties. But with formation of coalitions during elections
and the frequent flitting of politicians from one party to another,
the actual party affiliation of a senator has become nebulous.
Joker considers himself an independent, but when
one questions his membership in the CA, he adds that he was a
candidate of Lakas-Kampi. Sen. Dick Gordon wants it to be known that
he is partyless but he is a CA member. Sen. Kiko Pangilinan is not a
CA member but he also mirrors the hazy picture of parties. He ran
under the Liberal Party but he always describes himself as
“independent.” Sen. Jamby Madrigal went to the Supreme Court to
question the constitutionality of the CA composition. Madrigal,
herself, is of doubtful party loyalty. She announced her membership
with the PDP-Laban on the Senate floor when she was about to end her
term at the CA. With this shift, she became a CA member for 36
months instead of just 18 months. Biazon was a former LDP who turned
Liberal. Sen. Ping Lacson was with LDP in his first term in 2001,
then ran for president as independent in 2004, and for reelection in
2007 as United Opposition. Loren was with Lakas in 1998, and with
the Nationalist People’s Coalition in 2007.
Senators Jinggoy Estrada, Loren Legarda and
Angara, among others, had filed separate bills outlawing party
turncoatism and providing political parties with state subsidies.
Sen. Dick Gordon, chairman of the Senate Committee on Revision of
Codes and Laws, believes that such a law is needed. However, he does
not believe that it should be implemented immediately.
“Why should we give funds to strengthen Lakas
and Kampi when their members will be joining the new administration
in 2010?” he explained.
efrendanao2003@yahoo.com
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