House sets historic text voting at session

MANILA, Philippines — For the first time, House members are set to vote via text messaging and online video conferencing to replace floor deliberations to pass legislation needed to address the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. 

The House leadership has approved the proposal of Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. to allow lawmakers to cast their votes by text during the special session when they are either currently in self-quarantine or in their provinces due to the enhanced community quarantine, The STAR learned yesterday.

He made the proposal, saying it is “impossible for members who are in Bicol, Visayas or Mindanao to go to Batasan physically.”

Barzaga, who heads of the National Unity Party, said he could manage the long-distance plenary participation of NUP members in the House.

“If a House member questions that before the Supreme Court, I don’t think it will prosper,” he added.

Several lawmakers have already filed measures seeking supplemental budget and stimulus packages, saying the P27.1-billion stimulus package of the government might not suffice for the economic repercussions of the crisis.  

Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez agreed with Barzaga and defended the legality of the proposal.

Rodriguez, chair of the House committee on constitutional amendments, explained that the House might amend its own rules to allow voting via text messaging or online video conferencing during special session.

He said that while Article VI, Sec 26(2) of the 1987 Constitution requires personal attendance of House members to vote on bills, Section 16(3) of the same articles “allows each House to determine the rules of its proceedings.”

“In these extraordinary times, when public interest and necessity require, the House can suspend the present rules of the House and adopt new rules to allow an online special session and online voting or text voting on the bills presented for approval,” he said.

Rodriguez added that the special session of Congress during times of calamities like the COVID-19 epidemic, as being planned, is also allowed under the Constitution.

“With the President certifying the needed bills to address COVID-19 as urgent, there will be no need for the three-day publication rule,” he stressed, referring to the rule in the same provision requiring reading on three separate days as well as printing of copies of the measures and distribution to House members three days before passage.

Congress was set to conduct a special session this weekend, but called the plan off in the absence of the required formal call from President Duterte.

Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano revealed that they opted to first hold a high-level meeting between heads of the executive and legislative branches yesterday afternoon.

“We will map out how we can empower our government by giving ample resources and flexibility needed to face and solve this COVID-19 pandemic,” he said in a statement yesterday.

Insiders bared that the House continued to prepare for the special session that might push through in the following days “because of needed budgetary requirements.”

Under the plan, House members who will not be able to physically attend the special session will be allowed to vote via text messaging or online platforms like video conferencing to be arranged by the secretariat.

The House leadership also dissuaded members who are on self-quarantine after a foreign trip or contact with COVID-19 patients, developed symptoms, with illnesses or in advanced age not to attend the session and just participate by remote voting.