While reading the newspaper accounts of the exchange between Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III and Speaker of the House of Representatives Pantaleon Alvarez about chamber-performance superiority, I was reminded of something that was said to me by the Cory Aquino era’s Speaker, the late Ramon V. Mitra Jr.
In the course of the Pimentel-Alvarez exchange data were adduced that showed the number of bills filed and resolutions filed in the House of Representatives since the start of the current (17th) Congress. During that period 6,911 bills and 1,517 resolutions were filed; 2,100 bills were processed and 518 resolutions were approved. The data showed that the Senate passed only the General Appropriations Act for 2018, the Tax Reform Acceleration and Inclusion Act (TRAIN) and 37 other Lower House-approved bills.
After calling the Senate “the slow chamber,” Speaker Alvarez rated the performance of the House of Representatives 8 on a scale of 10 and decried the Senate’s “sluggish action” on the bills forwarded to it by the Lower House. I have never known a Speaker of the House of Representatives (1) to be so confrontational in his relations with the leader of the Senate and (2) to be obsessed with speed in the work of the legislature. The Speaker’s onslaught against the Senate was startling, to say the least.
Mr. Pimentel, who is the son of a great former Senator and Senate president, reacted to Mr. Alvarez in a manner befitting his lineage. “I have responded to (the Speaker) before by saying that the Senate is the thinking chamber,” the Senate president calmly said. It was natural for the Lower House to produce more bills, he said, because it is the origin of “local” bills, such as bills renaming hospitals and schools. “Let us judge lawmaking in terms of how the laws (Congress passes) improve the quality of life of Filipinos in particular,” Mr. Pimentel said.
Expanding on his statement that the Senate was “the thinking chamber,” the Senate President said this: “We (Filipinos) must change our mindset. Quality, not quantity.”
The Secretary of Transportation in the administration of President Gloria M. Arroyo, Pantaleon Alvarez apparently has not moved out of the world of transportation; he seems to regard Congress as a Philippine National Railways or Light Rail Transit train. For someone who is supposed to be knowledgeable about the purpose and work of a bicameral legislature, Speaker Alvarez appears unable to grasp the essence of the difference between the lower chamber of a bicameral legislature – be it the House of Representatives, a Chamber of Deputies or a House of Commons —and the upper chamber. It will be highly useful for Mr. Alvarez to learn about the origin and function of the United Kingdom’s House of Lords. If he does, he will find that the principal function of the House of Lords, according to Walter Bagehot’s definite work on Britain’s governmental system, is “to delay” the process of conversion of House of Commons-approved measures into law. Delay does not mean deliberately obstructing that process; Bogehot explained. It means slowing down the process so that a full opportunity can be provided for a thorough review of a measure that has been sent up to the Lords by the Commons. The Lords can only delay; they cannot block legislation.
If one of the finest legislatures in the world believes in the wisdom and efficacy of a bicameral legislature with a delaying mechanism, what basis does Speaker Alvarez have for insisting that this country’s counterpart of the House of Lords be “a bit more active” and less “sluggish” in dealing with measures approved by his chamber?
At the outset of this piece I spoke of something that the late Speaker Ramon V. Mitra Jr.—a sensible, independent-minded and courteous practitioner of governance—once said to me during his incumbency. “If I pass around a piece of toilet paper among the Congressmen, they will sign it.” Monching Mitra said with all seriousness. That, Mr. Speaker, is what the Senate president was referring to when he spoke of quality over quantity.
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