House to go paperless soon under proposed amendments

MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives will go paperless under the proposed amendments in its rules, an official announced yesterday.

Deputy Majority Leader Crispin Remulla, who heads the House rules rewriting sub-committee, said the new rules would make their legislative work paperless by providing tablets to 300 lawmakers.

Apart from digitizing the legislative process and contributing to pro-environment measures, Remulla explained that the proposed policy could also help the House save funds.

The Cavite representative pointed out that an estimated P6 million or P20,000 for an android tablet per congressman could be spent for the proposal, which is lower than the amount spent on paper. 

“The House has been spending an estimated P9 million every year for paper. Going paperless will result in savings,” he said.

Remulla said the new rules would expedite the process in re-passing bills vetoed by the President and returned to Congress.

He said they would propose a rule requiring only one committee hearing to refine any vetoed bill that  aims to expedite the process and convince the President to sign the measure into law.

“We are going to avoid the normal long process of legislation for any vetoed bill. An expeditious process should be observed after the refinements,” he explained.

Remulla added the new rules would also include the Supreme Court ruling in choosing the next minority leader where House members who did not vote for the winning speaker and those who abstain will choose among themselves their leader and manifest this in the plenary.

He said the amendments could be passed in December after passing the 2020 national budget as he vowed to make the new rules more responsive to the legislative process.

Remulla’s panel was designated by House majority leader and committee on rules chairman Martin Romualdez to come up with the proposed new rules for the 18th Congress.

On July 22, the House adopted provisionally the rules of the previous Congress.