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Congress needs to focus on urgent bills

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By CARMELA FONBUENA, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak | 01/02/2009 10:49 PM

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Editor's note: This is the eleventh in our series of year beginners.

The legislative department has a full plate in 2009. The deadlines are looming for at least three urgent measures—the 2009 General Appropriations Act in January, the Baselines bill in May, and the proposed extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program in June. Although there's no deadline for the Reproductive Health bill, its proponents also aim to put the bill to a vote as early as February.

Passage of these measures is threatened by the obsession of the House of Representatives to push for Charter change, however. The nearness of 2010 presidential elections is sure to distract the congressmen and the senators who will run in the elections, too.

Looming deadlines

1. 2009 Budget in January

Congress adjourned in 2008 without passing the 2009 budget. It means that the government will operate under a reenacted budget for at least one month next year.

House appropriations committee chair Junie Cua assured that the budget will be Congress' first priority when session resumes next year. He said the Senate and the House panels have agreed on the amendments in the budget.

"The consensus among us is that there's a need to stimulate the economy because of the global financial crisis. Government must come in" Cua told reporters in December.

Cua identified infrastructure--roads, bridges, irrigation, food production and post-harvest facilities--and social protection as the top priorities.

Congress will resume session on January 19. Cua said they can finish the budget for President Arroyo's signature by end of January.

2. Baselines bill in May

Senator Miriam Santiago

The May 13, 2009 deadline set by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea for archipelagic states like the Philippines to submit a baselines law is hanging over the heads of Senator Miriam Santiago and Cebu Rep. Antonio Cuenco who both head the foreign relations committees in their respective legislative chambers.

The UNCLOS is set to launch the International Seabed Authority, an international regime that will define country territories--the extent of maritime jurisdiction, the measure of continental shelves, zones of economic development, areas of strategic importance for national security, and areas subject to resource and environmental management.

While a baseline law is not a requirement by the UNCLOS, it is said to strengthen our claim in the potentially oil-rich Kalayaan Group of Islands and Scarborough Shoal because it would show their proximity to Palawan. The islands are also claimed by China, Vietnam, Brunei, Taiwan, and Malaysia.

Cuenco said Congress should pass the bill in the first quarter of 2009. “It should not be beyond March,” he said.

“There’s no problem in the House of Representative. We’re still waiting for the Senate version. But I heard they have prepared already the committee report. It’s subject to the approval of the plenary,” he added.

The Senate did not agree with the House version that included the disputed territories. Santiago's committee wants to classify the disputed islands as simply "regime of islands."

Cuenco said the House panel can agree with their classification as regime of islands but he said it should be rephrased as "regime of islands under the Republic of the Philippines."

3. CARP Extension in June

In a widely criticized move, Congress on its last session day extended only the voluntary land transfer component of Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) for another six months.

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman

This is the second time that CARP was extended after it first expired in June 2008. The new extension favors the landowners who refuse to subject their lands to CARP because it excluded the contentious compulsory land acquisition, which is said to be the heart and soul of the land reform program.

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, who is the main proponent of the CARP extension bill, called it the "emasculated" CARP. About 700,000 hectares of the 1.1 million hectares still to be distributed under CARP is classified under compulsory land acquisition.

The extension of CARP, as is, is a priority bill set by President Arroyo and supported by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines.

While the six months extension is said to give Congress breathing space to discuss amendments to the CARP law, Lagman fears that the tumultuous last session day of 2008 when the majority in both chambers of Congress passed the "emasculated" CARP is a preview of the death of CARP once the extension bill is put to a vote before its expiration.

"If we can't pass a joint resolution (to include the compulsory land acquisition in the CARP extension), how much more the bill?," Lagman said.

Nevertheless, Manila Auxillary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, who led farmers in a hunger strike to call for the extension of CARP, is not giving up. "The fight goes on," he said the night of Congress's last session day in 2008.

4. Reproductive Health

Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros Baraquel

For the first time in 14 years, the a reproductive health bill which seeks to promote contraceptives for birth control reached the plenary. Deliberations in the lower House have been fierce between the NGO-backed proponents and the Catholic Church-backed dissenters.

If the proponents are to be believed, they are close to getting the votes in the House. But a number of them have withdrawn support, too.

"We are 113 co-authors. It's only a matter of time. In January or February, we'll finish with the 20 or so interpellators left," said an optimistic Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros Baraquel.

She acknowledged that the pending visit of Pope Benedict could upset the momentum that the proponents have gained, however.

"But we, RH bill authors, must uphold the principle that this is a secular mater on which we act in conscience. The Catholic Church also needs to reform its views on women," she said.

The prospects of Charter change

Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte

The Charter change moves in the House of Representatives may reach the Supreme Court if and when Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte gathers 196 signatures from the House of Representatives for the resolution seeking to declare joint voting as the proper procedure to convene a Constituent Assembly to amend the Constitution.

Villafuerte belongs to the political party founded by President Arroyo, the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi).

The Constitution requires a three-fourth vote of Congress--or 196 votes--to convene a Constituent Assembly. Joint voting will allow the 238-member House of Representatives to bypass the 23-member Senate which has unanimously opposed Constituent Assembly as the mode to amend the Constitution.

The seven vacancies in the Supreme Court next year, which will be filled up by President Arroyo, makes the anti-Chacha forces worry. A pro-Arroyo Supreme Court, it is feared, will allow the congressmen to get their way.

2010 presidential elections

While the Charter change initiatives will continue and cast doubts on whether or not elections will take place in 2010, the senators and the congressmen are expected to be pre-occupied with pre-campaign preparations.

Already, many senators are among the potential presidential candidates in 2010.

In the House of Representatives, the administration political parties Lakas-CMD and Kampi continue to try a merger to remain the dominant party.