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Pedro Romualdo of Camiguin proposed last week to lock in members of
the House for the duration of each session to block them from
leaving the hall before the chamber’s business is over.
The veteran lawmaker had been pissed off by the
failure of the House to approve on second reading his pet measure
seeking a higher exemption for taxpayers for lack of a quorum.
He railed at the habit of many of his colleagues
to attend roll calls only to disappear before they could even warm
their seats. Their absence, he said, has resulted in quorum-less
sessions.
The congressman from Sorsogon, Rep. Salvador
Escudero, confirms Romualdo’s legitimate gripe. He says the
temperature in the session hall becomes colder a few minutes after
roll call, ascribing it to lack of warm bodies with the disappearing
act of members while the session is in progress.
Congresswoman Liwayway Vinzons-Chato of
Camarines Norte chafes at the Romulaldo plan, saying it treats
members of the House like kids. She exculpates her absentee
colleagues by explaining that they may have felt exhausted after
attending committee meetings or may have had prior commitments to
meet with their constituents.
Some congressmen have offered alternative
solutions that could find a responsive chord in the House
membership. They suggest a reversal of the roll call system by first
proceeding with the order of business and checking attendance later
at the end of session.
Quorum-less sessions have been a recurring
headache of the House leadership since the beginning of the
sessions. Speaker Prospero Nograles acknowledges the problem and
does not condone truancy. He is glad, he says, that the matter has
been brought to the attention of media.
At the start of the session immediately after
the May 2007 election, then-Speaker Jose de Venecia boasted that
House attendance had become “very encouraging,” in part because
of the seeming exuberance of new faces in the House to attend to
their sworn duties.
To maintain this auspicious trend, he adopted a
carrot-and-stick policy, giving brownie points to those with perfect
and near-perfect attendance but shaming habitual absentees by
publishing their names in the newspapers.
There was some progress for a while but, today,
the backsliding of House members has become more pronounced.
The irrational behavior of many congressmen has
earned them nasty appellations to make them unworthy of the
honorific, “The Honorable,” affixed to their names. Long before
martial law, they were called “tongressmen,” a reference to the
proclivity of some to accept bribes.
In many instances, their performance and
official conduct appear to have been colored more by self-interest
than moral principles. This paints them as “creatures of
self-interest” that leaves nothing at all to their capacity for
self-restraint.
Many congressmen have outraged the people over
how fast they respond to invitations to “money-tainted” meetings
at Malacañang. Their seeming “envelopmental” orientation does
not make them any worthier than the ordinary citizens who seem to
have a stronger sense of decency and a closer attachment to the
virtues of honesty, independence and passion for work.
Truancy betrays their lack of moral
responsibility and conscientiousness in the performance of their
functions to introduce legislation to benefit their constituents and
the people in general.
The situation in the Senate looks much better.
The senators have shown a greater sense of responsibility and
dedication to their work as evidenced by their good attendance
record during session days.
A government employee who times in at 8 a.m.,
leaves office for other work and comes back to time out at 5 p.m.,
is called an office cheat.
In Congress, how would you call a congressman
who attends a roll call at 4 p.m., quickly disappears and never
comes back until the next day’s roll call? Juan de la Cruz calls
him a certified malingerer.
agro324@yahoo.com
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