House Rule Section 48

Wanting to hit the ground running, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in northern Luzon got the month-old administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. hitting a speed bump instead. Courtesy of Mother Nature, a devastating earthquake last Wednesday struck Northern Luzon provinces, with Abra hardest hit as the epicenter. The home province of President Marcos – Ilocos Norte – was among the nearby provinces affected by the tectonic earthquake. Felt all the way down to Metro Manila, the tremor fortunately was in lesser magnitude.

The devastation did not only disrupt normal lives but also caused deaths to at least six people. It also cost a lot of economic dislocation for the people in Ilocos Region in terms of buildings, houses, bridges and roads as well as churches and other heritage structures that were severely damaged.

As a result of this unpredictable calamity, new and additional priorities cropped up for President Marcos to consider. The earthquake happened two days after the freshly minted Chief Executive just spelled out his priority legislative agenda in the first joint opening sessions of the 19th Congress. The President listed down more or less 21 bills during his maiden state of the nation address (SONA) held at the Batasang Pambansa.

There is now a flurry of proposals from lawmakers for President Marcos to endorse a long pending bill in the past Congresses to create a Department of Disaster Resilience (DDR). The DDR bill though was not among the priority bills of President Marcos.

Before the earthquake, certain lawmakers were already sounding out President Marcos to reactivate and convene the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC). Created by law, the President is empowered to convene a LEDAC meeting with the Senate president, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and key leaders of Congress and selected Cabinet members to discuss their common legislative agenda. During the past two administrations, however, the two former presidents delegated the task of convening the LEDAC to their respective Executive Secretary. Presided by the so-called “little president,” it earned the monicker as “mini-LEDAC” meeting.

A “mini-LEDAC” was virtually held when President Marcos flew to Abra a day after the earthquake. Presidential sister Senator Imee Marcos, along with their maternal first cousin House Speaker, Leyte Rep. Martin Ferdinand Romualdez, several Cabinet officials and some Ilocos Region Congressmen were also in attendance. Joining the briefing of the post-earthquake rescue and relief operations, Sen. Marcos called attention to her pending bill in the 18th Congress. According to her, it sought to create a disaster response body attached to the Office of the President similar to the set-up during the administration of their late father, former president Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

Unlike the House version creating a new department, the Senator alluded to what she called as “Ilocano thinking” to be spendthrift compared to “Waray thinking.” In obvious digs to Romualdez, the Senator obliquely hit their own mother, former First Lady Imelda Marcos who has been known for big-scale structures built during her late husband’s presidency.

In behalf of the Lower House, Romualdez retorted: “Mr. President, we will rightsize our legislation.” He adverted to the proposed National Government Rightsizing Law in the number one list of priority bills of the Chief Executive. Himself a two-termer Congressman and six years as Senator, President Marcos merely quipped: “Thank you, Mr. Speaker, nakapag-legislate pa tayo.”

If we go by this latest presidential declaration, that would be one less priority bill done and over with already.

If the President certifies a measure as urgent administration bill, it may be approved by Congress on second and third reading on the same day.

Let’s look at the batting average of his immediate predecessor, former president Rodrigo Duterte. Data from the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office (PLLO) showed only 36 of Duterte-certified 75 priority measures, proclamations and international agreements were enacted, or have secured the concurrence of lawmakers. Of the 27 measures certified as urgent by ex-president Duterte, 23 have become laws during the 17th and 18th Congresses.

If we go by the law of averages, the 21 or so priority bills of President Marcos for the next three years of the 19th Congress have better chances of being passed into law. That is as far as Albay Rep. Joey Salceda sees it.

Salceda knows where he is speaking from. After all, he has done Congressional Oversight of all SONA promises as against accomplishments during the nine-year term of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. In his post-SONA review on President Marcos, Salceda noted, more than half of the priority bills were already approved at the Lower House but got stalled at the Senate in the last two Congresses.

During our Kapihan sa Manila Bay breakfast news forum last Wednesday, Salceda disclosed, the Speaker can just invoke “Section 48 on Bills and Resolutions Favorably Acted Upon” under the Rules of the House of Representatives. To wit: “When a committee action on a bill or resolution is favorable, the bills or resolution and the corresponding report together with other supporting documents and information materials shall, together with electronic copies thereof, be filed with the Secretary General, who shall assign a number to the report. Thereafter, the sponsoring committee shall transmit the same to the Committee on Rules in such number of copies as required by said committee together with the electronic copy thereof.”

“In case of bills or resolutions that are identified as priority measures of the House, which were previously filed in the immediately preceding Congress and have been approved on 3rd reading, the same may be disposed of as matters already reported upon the approval of majority of the Members of the committee present, there being a quorum.”

That is how the House fast tracking rules churn bills out of its legislative mills for quick passage into laws.