Flaws in the laws, but who made them?

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix them. This is always easier said than done by many of our lawmakers in Congress.

I won’t make sense if I should not speak in behalf of many Filipinos, who think the same way on why Congress has to pass new laws to amend existing ones, which they themselves approved in the most recent past only.

Granting for the sake of argument that these laws have to be reviewed or revisited, precisely because they need to be amended to adjust them to present realities and the needs of the times, leads us to the question: are our lawmakers so short-sighted they were not able to take into account provisions for adjustments within these laws?

With 24 Senators, called as "independent republics" by themselves, and more than 200 members of the House of Representatives, any proposed laws go through a fine-toothed comb at the legislative mills in both chambers of Congress.

As one popular saying goes, two heads are better than one. But the other popular saying warns, too many cooks spoil the broth.

Let me just point out at least three of these laws which are currently the subject of public debate, in and out of the halls of both chambers of Congress.

One is the soon to become new law - after much debate - the proposed amendments to the existing expanded value added tax (EVAT), lifting all existing exemptions that were granted by previous Congresses after the original VAT law took effect more than a decade ago.

Records will show how the original VAT law has been decimated by the passage of several amendments to provide exemptions to banks and other financial institutions, cooperatives, professionals like doctors to actors and actresses and even pro-basketball players.

Then Sen. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, if my memory serves me right, was then the chair of the Senate committee on economic affairs. She was among those who voted in favor of these laws on VAT exemptions.

But our re-electionist lawmakers obviously do not want to lose their popularity come May 2007 and pass on to President Arroyo the burden, through "standby authority" to raise the VAT from 10 percent to 12 percent by Jan. 1, 2006 under certain conditions.

Two, the controversy surrounding a fresh initiative in Congress to abolish the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) which was created by Republic Act (RA) 7942 in 1995.

The principal author of the proposal to abolish the MMDA, Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin, acknowledges the problems bedevilling this agency, headed by chairman Bayani Fernando, can be largely traced to the consequent clipping of powers of the Metro Manila Mayors which they used to enjoy under RA 7160 or the Local Government Code approved by Congress in 1991.

And three, the renewed efforts to pass a law legalizing jueteng despite previous attempts in Congress that failed due to stiff opposition from Church leaders and other anti-gambling groups.

Such knee-jerk reactions came only after allegations came out again in media of supposed unabated jueteng operations under the protection of police and people close to Malacañang.

There is already a law, RA 9287, which imposes stiffer penalties against those caught in jueteng, masiao, and other illegal numbers games in the country. And how easily the memories of some of our solons fail to recall that RA 9287 was signed into law by President Arroyo only last April 2, 2004.

Like any other laws, lack of execution, implementation or enforcement is also part of the problem.

So I think it was timely that the initial steps leading to a "political summit" being organized by Speaker Jose De Venecia finally took place yesterday at the Manila Hotel.

De Venecia, the consummate politician that he is, as president of the ruling administration Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (CMD), took it upon himself to put together this "political summit" amid the continuing heated politics in the country one year after the bitterly fought May 10 elections.

Even if she is De Venecia’s co-president of Lakas-CMD, President Arroyo stayed out of the "political summit" and left it to the Speaker to run the show.

It took a still grieving Speaker, who lost his daughter KC to the fire that razed their home in Dasmariñas, Makati City in December last year, to take it upon himself to steer the country’s political leaders towards a more unified and well defined directions for the Filipino nation.

Detained President Joseph Estrada accepted De Venecia’s personal invitation to him and sent to the "political summit" opposition Sen. Juan Ponce-Enrile who is the president of their Partido ng Masang Pilipino (PMP). And to think that it was against Estrada that De Venecia suffered a humiliating landslide defeat when the two of them run against each other during the May 1998 presidential elections.

De Venecia completely exited from politics and suffered in silence with his ever supportive wife, Manay Gina De Venecia at his side, after that defeat in his first ever presidential bid.

To his credit, De Venecia was never a participant in the coup plot hatched by his fellow Lakas leaders headed by former President Fidel Ramos (by his own public admission) that toppled Estrada from office at the end of the EDSA-2 People Power revolution in January 2001.

Hopefully, the summit would help the Arroyo administration put an end to the EDSA-2 curse that continues to hound the government.

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