How The Congress Voted For the Impeachment of GMA

Posted by: Avigail Olarte | August 24, 2006 at 8:33 pm
Filed under: Arroyo Impeachment, In the News

THE PCIJ is providing a list showing how members of the House of Representatives voted on the impeachment complaint this morning and how they voted last year.

Seven congressmen reversed their votes in last year’s impeachment by voting this year to junk the complaint against the President. (see table below)

HOUSE MEMBER PARTY 2006 VOTE 2005 VOTE
Proceso Alcala LP Yes No
Teodoro Locsin Jr. PDP-Laban Yes No
Rodante Marcoleta Alagad Yes No
Jacinto Paras LDP Yes No
Antonino Roman LP Yes No
Arthur Pingoy Jr. NPC Yes No
Christian Señeres Buhay Yes No

Meanwhile, majority of those who voted for the complaint’s dismissal in 2005 had voted consistently. (See table.)

For the full list comparing how congressmen voted this year and last year, click here.

Below is the list showing how they voted today, courtesy of inq7.net:

Affirmative votes:
1. Benjamin Abalos, Jr.
2. Bienvenido Abante Jr.
3. Harlin Abayon
4. Roque Ablan Jr.
5. Rodolfo Agbayani
6. Rodolfo Albano III
7. Proceso Alcala
8. Felix Alfelor, Jr.
9. Joel Mayo Almario
10. Antonio Alvarez
11. Genaro Rafael Alvarez III
12. Prospero Amatong
13. Hussin Amin
14. Rodolfo Antonino
15. Trinidad Apostol
16. Jesus Reynaldo Aquino
17. Munir Arbison
18. Ignacio Arroyo
19. Augusto Baculio
20. Alipio Badelles
21. Leovigildo Banaag
22. Roseller Barinaga
23. Salacnib Baterina
24. Claude Bautista
25. Luis Bersamin
26. Ferjenel Biron
27. Anna York Bondoc
28. Narciso Bravo Jr.
29. Danton Bueser
30. Elias Bulut
31. Belma Cabilao
32. Douglas Cagas
33. Roberto Cajes
34. Carmen Cari
35. Bobbit Carlos
36. Tranquilino Carmona
37. Nanette Castello-Daza
38. Fredenil Castro
39. Arthur Celeste
40. Antonio Cerilles
41. Edgar Chatto
42. Leonila Chavez
43. Erwin Chiongbian
44. Solomon Chungalao
45. Eufrocino Codilla Sr.
46. Mark Cojuangco
47. Guillermo Cua
48. Junie Cua
49. Antonio Cuenco
50. Rodriguez Dadivas
51. Samuel Dangwa
52. Simeon Datumanong
53. Del de Guzman
54. Jose de Venecia
55. Arthur Defensor
56. Matias Defensor
57. Raul del Mar
58. Antonio Diaz
59. Baisendig Dilangalen
60. Abdullah Dimaporo
61. Victor Dominguez
62. Mauricio Domogan
63. Jack Duavit
64. Faysah Dumarpa
65. Tomas Dumpit
66. Ramon Durano VI
67. Consuelo Dy
68. Faustino Dy
69. Glenda Ecleo
70. Eileen Ermita-Buhain
71. Gerardo Espina Jr.
72. Amado Espino Jr.
73. Edgar Espinosa
74. Emilio Espinosa
75. Conrado Estrella III
76. Peter Paul Jed Falcon
77. Catalino Figueroa
78. Eduardo Firmalo
79. Antonio Floirendo
80. Orlando Fua Jr.
81. Albert Garcia
82. Vincent Garcia
83. Janette Garin
84. Ernesto Gidaya
85. Raul Gonzalez Jr.
86. Oscar Gozos
87. Eduardo Gullas
88. Joey Hizon
89. Gregorio Ipong
90. Nur Jaafar
91. Eladio Jala
92. Cecilia Jaloslos-Carreon
93. Cesar Jalosjos
94. Exequiel Javier
95. Uliran Joaquin
96. Josefina Joson
97. Simeon Kintanar
98. Jose Carlos Lacson
99. Danilo Lagbas
100. Edcel Lagman
101. Marcelino Libanan
102. Teodoro Locsin
103. Jaime Lopez
104. Mikey Macapagal-Arroyo
105. Benasing Macarambon Jr.
106. Emilio Macias II
107. Sunny Rose Madamba
108. Amang Magsaysay
109. Ma. Milagros Magsaysay
110. Corazon Malanyaon
111. Suharto Mangudadatu
112. Alfredo Marañon Jr.
113. Rodante Marcoleta
114. Roger Mercado
115. Florencio Miraflores
116. Anthony Miranda
117. Abraham Kahlil Mitra
118. Rafael Nantes
119. Francis Nepomuceno
120. Reylina Nicolas
121. Ernesto Nieva
122. Prospero Nograles
123. Arrel Olaño
124. Ernesto Pablo
125. Pedro Pancho
126. Jacinto Paras
127. Remedios Petilla
128. Prospero Pichay
129. Arthur Pingoy Jr.
130. Monico Puentevella
131. Herminia Ramiro
132. Isidoro Real Jr.
133. Jesus Crispin Remulla
134. Victoria Reyes
135. Miles Roces
136. Isidro Rodriguez
137. Antonino Roman
138. Jesus Jurdin Romualdo
139. Eduardo Roquero
140. Gerry Salapuddin
141. Joey Salceda
142. Federico Sandoval
143. Rizalina Seachon-Lanete
144. Hans Christian Señeres
145. Lorna Silverio
146. Eric Singson
147. Jose Solis
148. Nerissa Corazon Soon-Ruiz
149. Danilo Suarez
150. Victor Sumulong
151. Mary Ann Susano
152. Wilhelmino Sy-Alvarado
153. Judy Syjuco
154. Emmylou Taliño-Santos
155. Gilbert Teodoro
156. Herminio Teves
157. Acmad Tomawis
158. Generoso Tulagan
159. Aurelio Umali
160. Renato Unico Jr.
161. Edwin Uy
162. Reynaldo Uy
163. Edgar Valdez
164. Florencio Vargas
165. Rene Velarde
166. Eduardo Veloso
167. Luis Villafuerte
168. Ma. Amelita Villarosa
169. Eleuterio Violago
170. Laurence Wacnang
171. Antonio Yapha
172. Eduardo Zialcita
173. Juan Miguel Zubiri
Negative votes:
1. Henedina Abad
2. Nereus Acosta
3. Benjamin Agarao
4. Mario Aguja
5. Juan Edgardo Angara
6. Darlene Antonino-Custodio
7. Agapito Aquino
8. Benigno Aquino III
9. Teddy Casiño
10. Alan Peter Cayetano
11. Justin Marc Chipeco
12. Francis Escudero
13. Roilo Golez
14. Teofisto Guingona III
15. Mujiv Hataman
16. Ana Theresia Hontiveros-Baraquel
17. Ruy Elias Lopez
18. Renato Magtubo
19. Manuel Mamba
20. Imee Marcos
21. Rafael Mariano
22. Liza Maza
23. Florencio Noel
24. Saturnino Ocampo
25. Rodolfo Plaza
26. Gilbert Remulla
27. Etta Rosales
28. Rolex Suplico
29. Lorenzo Tañada III
30. Joel Villanueva
31. Joel Virador
32. Ronaldo Zamora
Abstention:
1. Joseph Santiago

Fat Salaries, Big Allowancwes and Other Perks of Lawmaking

22-24 MARCH 2004
by YVONNE T. CHUA

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Our latest series summarizes some of the key findings of a two-year-study conducted by the PCIJ on Philippine legislatures which are published in an upcoming book called, The Rulemakers: How the Wealthy and Well-Born Dominate Congress.
Congress has remained a notoriously unaccountable institution, its members flouting government auditing rules. As Part Three shows, congressmen actually earn much more than what most Filipinos think. The take-home pay of each representative is close to P250,000 every month. Most of that is tax-free.
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CONGRESS formally opened on July 23, 2001, when his secretary handed him the cash equivalent of his very first paycheck as a member of the House of Representatives.

The legislator had not looked at the amount on the check when he asked his secretary to cash it for him. Like most members of the public, he had assumed lawmakers aren't paid all that well.

But his secretary had returned from the bank with a bulging envelope, and when the congressman counted its contents, he was astounded: The total amounted to P247,500.

"Why is this so much?" he recalls asking his secretary. She replied that although his salary was actually just P26,000 a month after taxes, there was also an "allowance" for his trips back to his district, plus other sums meant to cover the rent of a house in Manila, consultations fees, and research expenses. He was getting all these at one go.

The secretary also told her incredulous boss, "If you don't want to spend it, that's up to you. You don't have to account for it."

But that was only the beginning. More money would be coming his way fairly regularly, leaving the congressman with the surprising realization that he was practically rolling in cash. He has since realized that the salary and perks he gets can match those of executives in medium to large companies. But legislators are even better off than most business executives: Only a fraction of their monthly take - the P35,000-basic monthly salary - is taxed. All the rest is not. It is public money spent much like personal funds.

The entitlements to public funds and the lack of financial accountability of members of Congress have long been a source of real worry to the public and even to sectors within the government. Even though the average legislator is already wealthy, he is assured that such wealth would not be diminished by his years in public service.

From the Eighth to the 10th Congress, each lawmaker received a basic salary of P17,000 a month, or P204,000 a year. The basic pay has since been adjusted twice: to P26,000 a month in 1998 and to P35,000 the following year. Yet just by being present at the plenary hall can already earn a congressman thousands more as "appearance fee."

What a Representative Can Receive

PURPOSE AMOUNT
Salary P35,000 a month

Published expenses P200,000 a month

Allowance from the Speaker P50,000-100,000 a month

Christmas gift from the Speaker P100,000-200,000

Occasional gift from Malacañang (Christmas) P100,000-150,000

Election for the speakership as much as P200,000

Attendance in a plenary session to vote on selected national bills P50,000 (can go up to 500,000 for urgent, controversial measures)

Special occasions (e.g. barangay elections) P50,000

Foreign travel $300 per diem

As officer or committee chairman Varies, depending on expenses

Pork barrel (Priority Development Assistance Fund and Public Works Fund) P65 million a year

*Salaries are fixed by law. Foreign travel per diem is set by the House leadership. Pork barrel fund is fixed by the General Appropriations Act. The other amounts are based on interviews with former and current congressmen and House staff members.

A congressman can also count on other sources of funds, including the House speaker himself. Bills incurred as a result of official activities, including trips abroad, are footed by the government as well.

Government auditors point to two provisions in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) that, when invoked, often unleashes a flood of money headed straight into the pockets of legislators and their staff. As a result, what congressmen and their personnel take home are way above the published amounts of what they are supposed to be receiving.

One of these provisions authorizes the Senate president, with respect to the Senate and the Commission on Appointments, the speaker, with respect to the House of Representatives, and the respective chairmen of the Senate and the House electoral tribunals "to augment any item in the general appropriations law for their respective offices from savings in other items of their respective appropriations."(Without this provision, such acts would be tantamount to fund juggling, according to government audit rules.)

The other provision authorizes the same set of congressional officials "to formulate and implement the organizational structures of their respective offices, to fix and determine the salaries, allowances, and other benefits of their respective members, employees and consultants… and whenever public interest so requires, make adjustments and reorganization of positions in the regular personnel with the corresponding transfer of items of appropriations or create new ones in their respective offices…"

Although the two provisions have never been vetoed, they have always merited special mention as one of the "observations" in the president's veto message. Without fail, the president each year has had to affirm his or her trust that the leadership of Congress would "faithfully observe, particularly on the aspect of compensation, the letter and spirit of the constitutional principle of salary standardization which Congress itself enshrined as a state policy" and ensure that its operations are "circumscribed by the salary rates, allowable level of allowances and other benefits prescribed or authorized by law."

Indications are that Congress leaders pay little heed to this declaration of trust. According to some observers, part of the reason for this is because they are too busy trying to run a fractious House of Representatives.

The speaker himself has to find ways to please members of the House in order to remain in power. One legislator's chief of staff even says that one of the first perks a congressman gets is a "payoff" during the race for the speakership. In one previous contest, sums reached as high as P200,000 for every vote, discloses the legislative staff member.

And once the speaker is in place, more money begins pouring out of the so-called speaker's discretionary fund.

Sources of the fund are said to include items in the House budget, such as its savings, although the money can come from elsewhere. Drawn from it are sums for the Christmas and other bonuses of congressmen, as well as their monthly allowances, which supposedly vary in amount, depending on the legislator's closeness to the speaker.

Congressmen who do not belong to the ruling coalition and party-list representatives are said to receive P50,000 a month, while "favored" congressmen reportedly get double or even triple that.

As with the other money that comes their way in Congress, there is no need to liquidate any amount coming from the fund. This is even though Article 25 Section 6 of the Constitution provides that "discretionary funds appropriated for particular offices shall be disbursed only for public purposes to be supported by appropriate vouchers and subject to guidelines as may be prescribed by law."

The speaker's fund is nothing new. In the 1960s, its size was estimated to be equivalent to the total budget for the House of Representatives minus those for salaries and personnel. Today, it is believed to be roughly equal to the total budget for the House of Representatives minus those for salaries and personnel and regular expenses of its members and committees. Although the exact amount is hard to estimate, the fund could easily be in the hundreds of millions.

Aside from the monthly allowance, congressmen also receive a bonus from the speaker before the Christmas break. This ranges from P100,000 to P200,000. (Occasionally, legislators receive a Christmas bonus from Malacañang or a business tycoon.) Another bonus lands on their laps before they go into a long recess.

The idea, say legislators, is so they would have something to spend in their districts during the long vacation. A party-list representative says, "I accepted the regular Christmas gift and gave it to my constituents."

The party-list representative recalls that they were initially left out of the speaker's list in the 11th Congress and had to demand their inclusion among the beneficiaries of the allowances. Some succeeded in getting paid on a cumulative, retroactive basis, the legislator adds.

One young congressman says he takes what the speaker offers, but he says he had to do some soul-searching in the beginning. "What we have is an underground governance structure," he says. "Congress is largely a private-based sphere where you outsmart the system of laws. Gift giving validates the fact that nakisama ka (you tried to be with the group). Every congressman expects bonuses. You walk the tightrope daily. You have to know if you should succumb."

The representative justifies accepting money from the Speaker's discretionary fund, saying members of the House spend from 50 to 80 percent of their time in their districts. "I have a big overhead," he says, pointing out that he has a staff of three at his central office and even more in the district.

A chief of staff who has had various lawmakers as boss also talks of "constituents who look at congressmen as if these were bank on wheels, ATM machines." Fiesta time alone can be very expensive, he says, noting, "If you have 300 barangays, you give P5,000 per fiesta, that's P1.5 million a year. And even then they'd curse you and call you a skinflint."

Some of those who expend a lot of effort getting into "choice" congressional bodies also cite their need to fulfill their constituents' demands as their main motive for a committee seat.

Take Iloilo Rep. Augusto Syjuco, who chose to be the vice chairman of the subcommittee on agriculture of the committee on appropriations rather than chairman of the agriculture committee in the 12th Congress. Syjuco says the subcommittee on agriculture is powerful because it has influence in the 29 agencies of the Department of Agriculture. That means his constituents would be better served, he says.

"Sa 'yo dumadaan ang pera; binibigyan ka ng proyekto (The money goes through you, you get the projects)," he explains. "As vice chair, I could get about P200 million a year (in projects) for my district; as agriculture committee chair, I could bring home at most P100 million a year."

But many observers and House insiders say legislators are also enticed by the more personal benefits of congressional committees. According to several members of the House, a congressman can draw about P20,000 to 30,000 more for expenses each month as chairman of a committee. The chairman of the powerful appropriations committee is said to draw an even bigger amount.

The appropriations committee is one of the most contested bodies in the House. The others, says a two-term congressman, are the committees on ways and means, accounts, franchises, games and amusement, and transport and communication. Their attraction lies not only in the extra allowances of the chairmen - as well as the members - but also in the other perks, most of which are monetary in nature, too.

The committee on public works and the subcommittee on public works of the appropriations committee are on equal footing, though. Many congressmen strive to get into the committee or the subcommittee not only for the projects for their districts, but also for the contracts they can lay their hands on, says a chief of staff of one congressman. More than half of representatives are engaged in property development and real estate, and a tenth in construction. The contracts they get can only assure business for their firms.

Also coveted are slots in the committee on transportation and communication and the committee on games and amusement. Both screen applications for franchises, some of them involving millions of pesos.

It is no wonder then that P50,000 is sometimes not enough to lure congressmen to the session hall whenever an important bill is tabled for voting. Apparently preoccupied largely with local interests, few legislators show up to constitute a real quorum in plenary sessions. This has forced the speaker to occasionally resort to giving "appearance fees" to those who attend and stay long enough to be counted.

A quorum is needed to pass a bill or vote on a resolution. There is a quorum only if there is a majority of House members present, or a minimum of 115 congressmen. But Syjuco says, "We have the worst quorum problems in the House now. Sometimes they even list as present those who are not there. They are listed as present even when they had already left."

A potential lack of quorum is feared most by the House leadership when it is time to vote on important bills of national application, such as those on the budget, absentee voting, power reform, money laundering, and electoral reform. "To be credible," says the party-list representative, "these measures have to be passed with a real quorum."

Yet even with the promise of a P50,000-fee, many congressmen still fail to make it to the session hall. Says one legislator: "When the time for voting comes, bells start ringing like those for ice cream. Nagtatawag ng quorum. The ringing lasts for one or two hours."

The appearance fee, however, has been known to escalate in proportion to the urgency of the measure. In the 11th Congress, members openly talked about the P500,000 many of them got to show up during the voting on the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira). The money supposedly came from the speaker's kitty as well, although it was sourced from another government agency. - With additional reporting by Avigail Olarte

The findings of the PCIJ's study of Congress are published in the book, The Rulemakers: How the Wealthy and Well-Born Dominate Congress.

An Expensive -and Unaccountable- Legislature

22-24 MARCH 2004
An Expensive -and Unaccountable- Legislature
by YVONNE T. CHUA
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Our latest series summarizes some of the key findings of a two-year-study conducted by the PCIJ on Philippine legislatures which are published in an upcoming book called, The Rulemakers: How the Wealthy and Well-Born Dominate Congress.
Part Two of the series describes how expensive Congress has become. In 2002, taxpayers spent nearly P1 million every month on each senator and close to P500,000 on each congressman. Moreover, even as most government agencies tightened their belts, Congress continues to legislate increases for itself. On the average, the upkeep of legislators has risen 10 percent every year since 1994. In 1999, this leaped to as high as a 60-percent increase in the House and a 72-percent increase in the Senate compared to the previous year's.
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IN 2002, taxpayers spent P939,472.47 every month on each senator and P429,601.79 on each congressman, based on published reports.

Shocking as these amounts may sound, they reflect only part of what Filipinos pay for their legislators' upkeep. Government auditors themselves say they are in the dark over how Congress spends most of its money, in part because there is hardly any paper trail to help them scrutinize how lawmakers use public funds.

What they do know is this: On the average, the upkeep of legislators has risen 10 percent every year since 1994. In 1999, this leaped to as high as a 60-percent increase in the House and a 72-percent increase in the Senate compared to the previous year's.

The hefty rise was due to the fact that lawmakers gave themselves a raise. Their basic salaries were upped that year. In addition, there were significant increases in the budget for foreign travel in both chambers as well as in local travel among congressmen.

Even as allocations for basic services such as education and public health have increased by only small increments in the last decade, Congress has used the power of the purse to put much more money into its own coffers.

The Rising Congress Budget

Since the early 1990s, it has legislated generous increases for its own budget, which includes not only the basic pay of the lawmakers and their staff, but also their travel expenses, allowances, expenses of various congressional bodies, as well as the salaries of officers such as the Senate president and speaker of the House and the budgets of their respective offices.

From 1994 to 2003, the General Appropriations Act or GAA, which sets the national budget for a fiscal year, increased annually by an average of seven percent. In comparison, the House budget had an 11-percent average yearly increase; that of the Senate posted an average 13-percent rise.

In 2002, when the total national budget shrank by 14 percent, Congress raised its own budget -by 10 percent in the House and four percent in the Senate.

Yet the increasing sums for the legislature have not been matched by a rise in the number of laws passed. Since the 11th Congress, the legislative mill has churned slower and slower. Congress's efficiency hit an all-time low in the years 2001 to 2004, when the legislature approved a measly 76 bills, compared to an average of 400 to 500 laws enacted in previous three-year congressional terms.

The slide began in the 11th Congress, although it is the 12th Congress that deserves the slacker's prize. It boasts of a record low not only in the number of laws approved, but also in terms of the total number of bills filed. In addition, the percentage of bills filed to the number of bills passed is a mere one percent, compared to the three percent chalked up by earlier legislatures.

Before martial law, the Constitution fixed the annual compensation of senators and congressmen at P7,200 each, unless otherwise provided by law. The amount included per diems and other allowances, excluding only traveling expenses to and from their districts of congressmen, and to and from their places of residence of senators, when attending sessions of Congress.

There is no similar provision in the 1987 Constitution. Instead, the charter leaves it to the law (meaning the lawmakers themselves) to determine the salaries of members of Congress. It only prohibits any increase from taking effect until after the full term of all members of the Senate and the House approving such a raise has expired.

There is, however, a provision in the constitution that is supposed to guarantee the public access to information regarding the other sums legislators get from the government. That is why every last quarter of each year, the Commission on Audit (COA) publishes an "itemized list of amounts paid to expenses incurred" for each senator and for each congressman in a leading daily.

But the published COA lists apparently fall short of real Congress figures. The lists from 1994 to 2002, for example, represent only 47 percent of the total House budget published in the GAA and 26 percent of the Senate budget. Where the rest of the budgets went is unclear, because COA provides no such details.

Various reports and legislators themselves talk about amounts congressmen receive as officers or chairs of committees and "allowances" from the speaker, as well as cash advances and reimbursements for official activities. But these items are nowhere in the list of expenses of the House.

In the Senate, amounts received by senators for similar duties are indistinguishable from other expenses such as advertising. According to a state auditor assigned to that chamber, these are lumped under the heading "Other MOE (maintenance and operating expenses)."

The auditor says though that the expenses of senators in the performance of their duties as officers and committee chairs are incorporated into COA's published itemized list of amounts paid to and expenses incurred for each legislator.

But this does not seem to be the case. For instance, the amounts that appear in the Senate records for the senators' settled MOOE (maintenance, operating, and other expenses), including foreign travel in 2002 were, on the average, 112 percent more than the figures published by COA. In short, the COA list reflected only about half the senators' MOOE that year, when the government paid a total of P77.5 million for the overseas travel of 173 congressmen and 11 senators.

COA's published list also showed that Senate President Franklin Drilon spent P6 million in MOOE that year. But the Senate's ledger showed he accounted for P21 million or 250 percent more than what COA released to the public. The COA list also did not state the Senate president's expenses for foreign travel in 2002, which added up to P1.3 million.

Moreover, Senate records pinpointed certain committees for which some senators drew additional MOOE. This means the discrepancy between the COA list and the Senate accounts was even bigger for these lawmakers.

Outgoing senator Ramon Revilla, for example, was given P21 million in additional MOOE in connection with his functions as chairman of the committee on labor, employment and human resources development. The late senator Renato Cayetano drew an extra P19 million as the Senate's representative to the Joint Congressional Power Commission of the two chambers of Congress.

In 1997, the Presidential Commission Against Graft and Corruption (PCAGC) observed that many items in the Congress budget "are not liquidated and audited in the same manner as expenses of public funds by all other government officials where proofs, documents, receipts, contracts, vouchers, and other pertinent documents required by law, rules and regulation are submitted to justify these expense before COA would pass them in audit."

"There is no mechanism," continued the PCAGC, "by which they (members of Congress) are made to account for funds they received in the same manner as all other government officials are periodically made to account for the funds entrusted to them, either through the regular or special audit of COA or by Congress during budget hearings or in the committee investigations conducted 'in aid of legislation.'"

As a general rule, the law demands that public officials submit receipts, contracts, and other documentary proof when they liquidate cash advances or ask to be reimbursed for expenses. There are exceptions, of course, among them the representation and transportation (local) allowances or RATA given to certain public officials - chief of division up - for official functions.

Given as direct payment to the official concerned or as a cash advance drawn by the cashier and supported by an approved payroll listing the officials entitled to RATA, these are considered "commutable," therefore nontaxable and not subject to liquidation. All COA demands is a certification that the public official spent the money for the purpose.

Another exception, although not as all-encompassing, are "extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses" authorized under the GAA for activities ranging from meetings, official entertainment, or public relations, to membership in government associations, contribution to charitable institutions, or office equipment and supplies. Unlike RATA, these expenses are supposed to be paid on a reimbursement basis.

COA does allow public officials to submit either receipts and other documents as proof of disbursement or a certification by the public official before he or she is reimbursed. The rule, however, applies only to national government agencies. And extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses cannot be used for salaries, wages, allowances, and intelligence and confidential expenses.

Intelligence and confidential funds are paid through a cash advance to the agency head. To pass in audit, the project officer is simply required to submit a liquidation voucher directly to the COA chairman. The rules allow the voucher to be supported only by a photocopy of the paid disbursement voucher of the cash advance, a certification of the agency head, and approval of the president (plus the Special Allotment Release Order and Allotment and Obligation Slip in the case of a national government agency). No receipts, contracts, or other proof are demanded.

Because the bulk of the published MOOE of representatives is consolidated with the basic pay in the payroll, they are no longer required to liquidate the lump sum of more than P200,000 released to each of them at the start of every month. They simply acknowledge receipt of the money. They do not even sign a certification the money was used for the purposes for which it was meant for, says a senior COA auditor.

Apparently to go around the liquidation and taxation requirements, the House avoids classifying MOOE as "cash advances" or "allowances," even if this is the way members of the chamber commonly see them. Instead, the House classifies them as "monthly allocations" or "outright expenses." As a result, congressmen get away with not having to submit any document to account for these funds.

They are not expected to submit a payroll of their district staff or report their functions, salaries, and withholding taxes. No one starts asking if they do not produce a report on the research their offices should supposedly undertake. There is no demand for them to produce the list of consultants they have hired, as well as the contracts they draw up for those whose services they need. As far as the current rules go, how the legislators spend their public affairs fund is their business, and their business alone.

In the Senate, maintenance and operating expenses or MOOE are released through separate vouchers. But the only supporting document that is often demanded is a certification signed by the senator or his chief of staff that the amount was spent in the discharge of official function.

The sums are based on a voucher signed by the senator or his chief of staff, supported by an approved expenditure program for the month and a certification by the senator concerned that the budget for the previous month had been spent. "Extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses" are also lumped together in the MOOE and released as cash advances, not on a reimbursement basis.

COA personnel acknowledge that the standard rule in all other government offices is to liquidate cash advances that are sourced from MOOE, including petty cash, as well as travel and field operating activity expenses. Except for salaries, they say, the rest of the money paid to a representative should fall under this rule. But since these objects of expenditures are disbursed as "monthly allocations" or "outright expenses," and not as cash advances, to a congressman, the government auditors say this frees the lawmaker from the obligation to liquidate the expenses.

An auditor who has been detailed at the House defends the setup: "The concept is, they (the congressmen) will spend the MOOE. How they operate their offices is up to them. They have the discretion because of the peculiar demands of their (district) office."

COA, says the auditor, presumes good faith on the part of the congressman and regularity in the use of his monthly allocations. He adds that state auditors can only assume congressmen will abide by government rules on hiring, procurement, travel, meetings, and activities or projects.

But a supervising auditor of COA insists that the arrangement at the House is not sanctioned at all by law. No law or COA circular authorizes a representative's expenses for supplies and other items for the maintenance of his or her office as "outright expenses" to be paid through payroll, he says. Other COA personnel, including auditors assigned to the House, admit as much. (The Senate, unlike the House, does not consider MOOE as "outright expenses.")

"The system is defective," laments the supervising auditor. "These are clear lapses in accounting and auditing procedures. How do we know if the congressman spent the money if he doesn't account for it? What if he pocketed it?"

"If you really want transparency, congressmen must liquidate all the money that is released to them," a veteran legislative officer remarks. "But they don't. Well, even if they did, we know a lot would be fabricated."

One auditor, though, is more forthright regarding why COA essentially leaves the House of Representatives alone. "The House is a political body," he says. "We don't want to get into trouble."

Many of his colleagues agree. For instance, they point out, while COA is a constitutional body, the appointment of its chairman needs to be confirmed by the 25-member Commission on Appointments consisting of legislators from both the House and the Senate.

COA also finds itself at the mercy of Congress when budget time comes: The legislature wields the power of the purse. Horsetrading becomes inevitable, especially in the assignment of auditors. One senior congressman, for example, threatened to bypass the COA chairman's appointment unless an auditor, who turned out to be a personal friend, was reinstated in a Metro Manila town. COA caved in.

Another auditor is even more blunt, saying, "We're scared of congressmen, we're scared of the system. Babalikan kami (They'll seek revenge). We don't want to tolerate corruption, but nothing happens to our reports. We just become subjects of harassment, and other people even make money out of our reports."

Auditors who question irregular or corrupt practices in the agency — which is part of their work - are often quickly reassigned. — With additional reporting by Avigail Olarte and Booma Cruz

The findings of the PCIJ's study of Congress are published in the book, The Rulemakers: How the Wealthy and Well-Born Dominate Congress.

How Representative Is Congress?

22-24 MARCH 2004
How Representative Is Congress?
by SHEILA S. CORONEL

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Our latest series summarizes some of the key findings of a two-year-study conducted by the PCIJ on Philippine legislatures which are published in an upcoming book called, The Rulemakers: How the Wealthy and Well-Born Dominate Congress.
The first part of the series deals with the composition of the legislature. We found that 18 years after the fall of Marcos, Congress has not become a more representative institution. Today?s legislators are richer now than ever before. While poverty levels since 1986 have remained at roughly between 30 to 40 percent of the population, lawmakers have become wealthier.

In 1992, the average net worth of congressmen was P8 million. By 2001, it was P28 million. In the Senate, the average net worth increased from P33 million in 1998 to P59 million in 2001. A quarter of all senators today have a net worth of above P100 million.

Today's legislators are also older and better educated and tend to stay in office longer than their predecessors. Moreover, the great majority of lawmakers come from political families. In the House of Representatives, two in every three members come from political families.
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EIGHTEEN years after the fall of Marcos, Congress is not becoming a more representative institution. In fact, today's legislators are richer now than ever before. While poverty levels since 1986 have remained at roughly between 30 and 40 percent of the population, lawmakers have become wealthier.

They are also older and better educated. As the results of a two-year PCIJ study of legislatures since 1898 show, members of the post-Marcos Congress tend to stay in office longer than their predecessors.

Moreover, most lawmakers come from political families, meaning that they have relatives who are currently holding or once held elective posts. In the House of Representatives, two of every three are members of political clans. The vast majority of these are second- and third-generation politicians with parents and grandparents who had been elected to public office.

In less than two months, Filipinos will be voting for a new set of legislators. Senatorial candidates have been campaigning since February. This week, they will be joined by those vying for seats in the House. If the results of previous elections are a guide, then the likelihood is that most of the legislators who will assume their seats in July would be so unlike the people who voted them to power.

The typical representative or senator cannot be more unlike the typical Filipino. The legislator is likely to be male, middle aged, and college educated, most likely with a degree in law. He has previously held a local government post and there is one chance in two that he is related to a former member of Congress.

He is also into business and has multiple income sources. He has property for rent, earns salary from a profession, and has investments in company shares. He is well off, with a net worth (most likely understated in his statement of assets) in millions of pesos. And the likelihood is that the longer he stays in Congress, the richer he becomes.

In 1962, only 27 percent of representatives were classified as upper class. In 1992, it was 44 percent. Over time, the assets of legislators have grown. In 1992, the average net worth of congressmen was P8 million. By 2001, it was P22 million. In the Senate, the average net worth increased from P33 million in 1998 to P59 million in 2001. A quarter of all senators today have a net worth of above P100 million.

The typical Filipino, meanwhile, is likely to be below 35, with a few years of high-school education, and an annual income of about P150,000 in 2000. The demographic profiles couldn't be more unmatched.

Legislators are Getting Richer

Five congresses — the Eighth to the 12th — have been constituted since the fall of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. The legislators elected to these bodies have hardly been representative of those they represent. In that sense, they have not been different from the past, when members of Congress were drawn from a narrow elite in terms of property, education (since 1898, they have been trained mainly in law) and social standing.

There have been changes, though. There are now many more women in Congress than there have been in the past. In the current House, there are 40 women, about 18 percent of the body, compared to only one percent in 1946, six percent in 1965, and 11 percent in 1992.

Today's legislators are also better educated than their predecessors, with 27 percent of all representatives boasting of postgraduate degrees, compared to only 18 percent in 1965.

The sources of their wealth are more diverse, indicating that many more business interests are represented in Congress, which can no longer be described as "landlord-dominated" legislature. The caciques of old have been replaced by real-estate developers, bankers, stockbrokers, and assorted professionals and businesspeople.

The changes reflect the changes in the Philippine economy, with the decline of agriculture and extractive industries (logging, mining) and the increasing importance of manufacturing, trade, and services. The changes have been obvious since the 1960s, when new men from business and the professions were elected to the legislature.

The rise of these new legislators mirrored the increasing political assertiveness of new sections of the business elite and the upper professional class that emerged in the 1950s and 60s. That period saw the birth of a manufacturing sector that produced previously imported goods for the local market. While many of those who became part of the manufacturing capitalists were large landowners, there were also those from the professional middle class and local traders who joined the ranks of the new rich and then sought seats in Congress.

Philippine legislatures have been hospitable to the entry of the newly affluent. Their ranks have been open to the constant infusion of new blood. The post-Marcos Congress is even more diverse in composition than its predecessors. It includes, aside from the old landowning families that have been in legislatures for 100 years, also new entrepreneurs, especially those in construction, real estate, and services that emerged among the fastest-growing economic sectors in the late 1980s and 1990s; middle-class professionals, especially lawyers from leading law firms; and leaders of nongovernmental organizations.

The legislature also has local officials or government bureaucrats able to build a base in their districts even if they are not backed by old wealth. In addition, the halls of Congress have recently accommodated celebrities from the movies, the mass media, and sports.

The legislature has traditionally opened to its members a world of privilege that enables the enterprising among them to take advantage of moneymaking opportunities and to accumulate wealth. A Congress seat can be used as a passport to the land of dealmaking, allowing aspiring politicians entry to the bastions of great wealth and privilege. In this sense, the legislature can be said to be an agent of mobility, allowing talented aspirants from the lower and middle classes entry to the narrow corridors of power and the most exclusive enclaves of the very rich.

Such mobility, however, is still limited to a narrow range of Philippine society. For sure, the more occupationally diverse membership from the more modern sectors of business, the mass media, and civil society means a wider range of perspectives and interests than at any time in the past. The trend toward increasing diversification that was noted in the 1960s continues today.

Moreover, the entry of party-list representatives in the 11th and 12th Congress enlarged that range, as it gave representatives of marginalized social sectors seats in the legislature. Despite this, however, Congress remains a fortress of privilege, its gates open to the new and aspiring rich, but closed — except for some narrow openings — to the poor and powerless.

The route to Congress, for the most part, is still via local government posts. Although recently, some have taken a shortcut, either through the media or the movies, or inherited their posts directly from a relative facing the three-term limit, the usual route is still for prospective legislators, even those who come from political families, to vie for "lesser" elective posts.

This trend was evident from the start. Political office in the Philippines has always been hierarchical: Aspiring politicians went up the political ladder from local to national office, from the House to the Senate, and from the Senate to the presidency. The upheavals caused by martial law disrupted this flow. The formula no longer works for those aspiring for the Senate and the presidency. But the path from local office to the House remains well trodden, although it has been fast-tracked for many because of the three-term limit.

In the 12th House that assumed office in 2001, 138 representatives — 61 percent — had been in public office prior to their first election to a post-Marcos House. Fewer representatives now come from the executive branch. Most of them — 49 percent of all representatives or 81 percent of those who had held public posts — had been elected to local office.

This shows the importance of a local political base in winning a House seat. Political families have the edge, because they can mobilize local patronage and political networks for their electoral forays. The same is not true of the Senate, however, because name recognition is more important in that chamber, allowing celebrities from the media and the movies to win hands down in national races even if they don't have a base in their districts. There are fewer celebrities in the House, although that is changing.

The passing on of a legislative seat from one generation to another provides evidence of the caste-like structure of the legislative elite. Four in every ten representatives in all the post-Marcos Congresses had relatives in previous legislatures. A third had parents who were in public office.

These are unusually high percentages and are an important index of the extent of real "democratization" that has taken place. But they still show, though, that Congress is not closed to those who do not come from powerful families. The flipside of the equation — six in every 10 representatives are not related to former legislators and seven out of 10 do not have parents who were in public office — should not be overlooked.

Once in Congress, however, legislators tend to stay there. The pattern since 1946 is for the number of first-termers in the House to decrease as time goes by, as congressmen hang on to their seats, using the perks and the powers available to their office to perpetuate themselves in power. Conversely, the number of those with multiple terms increases with time.

The trend is evident in the post-Marcos House as well, where the turnover rates would have been faster, as shown in the steep decline in the number of first-termers from the Eighth to the 10th House. By the 10th Congress, only 17 percent of representatives were on their first term, compared to 72 percent in the Eighth House.

This rapid decline was stemmed by the constitutional prohibition on more than three consecutive terms. The impact of the ban is evident in the sudden rise to 60 percent of the number of first-termers in the 11th House, only to decline again when a new House came to power in 2001.

Taken altogether, however, the turnover rate in the post-Marcos Congress is slower than that in pre-martial law years, despite term limits. From 1946 to 1961, an average of 51 percent of all members of Congress were new. The average for all the five post-Edsa congresses is only 46 percent. It would seem that there is less mobility in the post-Edsa legislature.

Looking at the history of the Philippine legislatures from the 1898 Malolos Congress, it would seem that families, not parties, are their most enduring feature. Regimes come and go but the families remain. Political parties are formed and disbanded but the clans that make them up stay on.

Families survive wars, dictatorships, and uprisings. The most enduring political families are the best evidence of this: The Aquinos and Cojuangcos of Tarlac, the Osmeñas of Cebu, the Romualdezes of Leyte, and the Marcoses of Ilocos Norte, among others, have been in Philippine legislatures for four generations. Some families eventually go into decline after successive electoral defeats or the death of a powerful patriarch, but others, stronger and more resilient, hang on and flourish.

Data gathered for the PCIJ study show the persistence of political families since the fall of Marcos. The reality is still that politicians are elected largely by mobilizing their kinship networks and family assets (e.g. money, name recall, connections). Once in office, they pave the way for other relatives to be either appointed to the bureaucracy or elected to government posts. Within a few years, a newly elected legislator will likely have kin in local office, various government agencies, and state-owned corporations. Before long, the next generation takes over.

Two-thirds of the legislators in the post-Marcos Congress are members of political families. Of these, 70 percent are second and third-generation politicians. Nearly all of them also have multiple relatives in public office.

In the Eighth Congress, the first post-Marcos legislature, 61 percent or 122 of 198 representatives were from political clans. The proportion has remained pretty much the same since then, despite the entry of party-list representatives in the 11th and 12th House. In the 12th Congress, which was elected in 2001, 61 percent or 140 of 228 representatives came from political clans. In the 11th House, it was 62 percent. If the percentages are computed without the party-list representatives, however, the numbers increase to 65 percent for the 11th House and 66 percent for the 12th.

The figures indicate that term limits set by the 1987 Constitution, which banned representatives from seeking more than three consecutive terms, did not make a dent on clan power. Representatives who were elected in the Eighth House, for example, could sit only up to the 10th Congress. And yet, the number of political family members in the 11th House is not much different from the ones before it. In many cases, the clans simply fielded other family members to replace those who faced term limits. In other cases, rival clans merely took the place of the incumbent ones.
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The findings of the PCIJ's study of Congress are published in the book, The Rulemakers: How the Wealthy and Well-Born Dominate Congress.

Pork is Political, Not a Developmental Tool

6-7 SEPTEMBER 2004
Pork is Political, Not a Developmental Tool
by YVONNE T. CHUA and BOOMA B. CRUZ

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As the country debates the best ways of managing the current "fiscal crisis," the focus once again has shifted to pork-barrel funds, the discretionary funds allocated to members of Congress. While some legislators have agreed to a cut in their pork, many others defend pork and justify its usefulness as a developmental tool.
The PCIJ's investigation, however, proves otherwise. This two-part series says that pork is primarily a vote-getting vehicle and a source of political patronage. It is also a tool wielded by the executive to buy the support of Congress for the bills Malacañang wants passed. Pork, moreover, provides an opportunity for lawmakers to rake in bribes and commissions from contractors of pork-funded projects.

The series explains how pork allocations grew from P12.5 million per representative in 1990, when the practice of giving legislators pork barrel was reinstated, to the current P65 million per congressman. The first part of the series shows how pork is used to keep legislators in power. The second part examines more closely corruption in pork-funded projects.
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IN 2001, 108 congressmen gave P162 million of their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) — considered as the "main" pork-barrel allocation — for medical assistance to their constituents through the Department of Health and various government hospitals. The Philippine General Hospital, the country's biggest state hospital, received P30.8 million.

The amounts are significant, and this example is often used by legislators to show that despite criticism, pork-barrel funds are actually used for the public good. In a recent TV interview, Senator Manuel Villar cited the case of government hospitals, which he said would suffer from a proposed cut in pork.

It is true that pork subsidizes underfunded state hospitals. But it is also true that lawmakers often make sure that only their constituents benefit from their allocations. Thus, even while state hospitals are strapped of funds to buy equipment or medicines, they can seldom use pork unless it is to directly benefit a legislator's constituents even if these are not necessarily the ones who needed help the most.

This example illustrates the dilemmas of pork. As the country debates how to deal with the current "fiscal crisis," pork-barrel funds are again in the eye of the storm. Legislators insist that pork is a developmental tool and cutting it as a means to address the budget deficit would have a negative impact on the countryside, which has traditionally been neglected by the national government.

The reality, however, is that pork is primarily a vote-getting vehicle and a source of political patronage. It is a tool wielded by the executive to buy the support of Congress for the bills Malacañang wants passed. Pork also provides an opportunity for lawmakers to rake in bribes and commissions from contractors of pork-funded projects.

Pork barrel, or simply, pork, refers to appropriations and favors obtained by a representative for his or her district. These funds are discretionary in nature, meaning it is up to each congressman or senator to identify the projects that will be funded by their pork-barrel allocation and the beneficiaries of the spending. Senators now get pork-barrel allocations of P200 million each, while congressmen are allotted some P65 million each.

Pork allocations have grown over the years-they were only P12.5 million per representative when pork barrel was reinstituted in 1990-as congressional leaders wangled bigger and bigger amounts from the executive.

Members of Congress say that pork fills a gap, as it addresses the needs of areas that are too remote or of social sectors that are too powerless, their plight is not heeded by the national government. They cite the sorry state of government hospitals as a case in point.

It is true that congressmen set aside chunks of their pork money for health care, but these sums are sometimes not used at all — despite the long queues of indigent patients at public hospitals and the stark lack of medicines and equipment in most of these facilities. The beneficiaries of legislators' largesse may be needy, but they are also politically well-connected. Those who have no access to their congressmen do not qualify for help.

The pork appropriation that a government hospital gets is stipulated as a "subsidy for indigent patients in the district" of a congressman, and cannot be used for other purposes, including the purchase of medicine or equipment that nearly all government hospitals need badly.

A state auditor assigned to the DOH recalls how the director of a big Quezon City-based specialty hospital, seeing that no one had availed himself of a congressman's fund, tried to persuade the lawmaker to allow the hospital to give the unused pork to patients other than those from his district. The year was fast drawing to a close and the unused money would soon revert to the National Treasury. But the congressman refused and instead asked the hospital director to transfer the amount to a trust fund so he could still use it the following year. This time, it was the hospital director's turn to refuse.

Some congressmen have made it a point to instruct government hospitals to use their pork only for patients bearing a "political ID" issued by their offices, says the auditor. Often, though, state hospitals are informed which patients are entitled to the pork funds through a letter of recommendation personally signed by the legislator.

The letter, which identifies the beneficiary and specifies the amount he or she is entitled to, is either submitted by the patient or sent by the legislator's office to the hospital. It's not only the poor who get a slice of pork, though. Because the congressman can nominate anyone, even nonindigents sometimes get into the list of beneficiaries.

But legislators want to please as many people as possible, so they dispense medical assistance of as little as P2,000 to P5,000 per patient. Considering the high cost of medicine, patients — especially those with serious or chronic illnesses — soon learn the pittance barely helps them get better. In government hospitals, pharmacies are so inadequately stocked they do not even carry paracetamol and other basic medicines. Patients are advised to use their own money and buy the medicine from private drugstores. In instances like this, the pork they get serves little use.

Congressmen, however, rarely see anything wrong with their role as patrons of their districts and implementers of projects. "Take that away, ano pang gagawin namin (what else would we do)?" asks Compostela Rep. 'Way Kurat' Zamora. "Of course, there's the national budget, naming of streets, but saturated na rin ang laws. And I think without that (pork), no one will run."

The practice, however, inevitably leads to patronage, where the challenge to incumbent congressmen becomes twofold: to raise funds for projects for his district and to ensure that a patron-client relationship between him and his constituents is sustained. Congressmen always make sure their constituents know exactly who a project's sponsors are. In the case of infrastructure, billboards prominently naming them as proponents are mounted at the project sites. Many legislators also have their names printed on medical kits or textbooks, or painted on service vehicles.

"We're prisoners of the game," says a congressman. "People are kept dependent and poor because that's how you want to keep them. You don't empower them, so they stay poor. You just buy people with project money."

The political fates of representatives are tied more tightly to pork barrel compared to those of senators. Unlike senators who are elected to national office on the basis of national issues and name recall, congressmen are voted by constituents due to the projects and other benefits they deliver to their districts.

"You see this in nearly all campaigns," says a veteran legislative hand who has served as chief of staff of several representatives. "The mayor or governor endorses the congressional candidate and keeps reminding voters that the candidate is the most qualified because he or she can bring back projects from Manila. The local officials don't even bother with the person's ability to make laws."

Senate President Franklin Drilon himself acknowledges the importance of the pork barrel for someone aiming for a House seat. This is why senators appear to be more open to a pork cut than their colleagues in the Lower House.

"I can still win (in a place where I do not have a pork-barrel project) if I am a champion of this or a champion of that," says Drilon. "But to a congressman, blighted 'yan. Kahit anong isyu sa Maynila, even if he runs naked in a hotel, that's nothing as long as he brings a project to his district. You let a senator run naked in a hotel lobby, do you think he can win in the next election?"

Even party-list representatives concede that they need pork for political survival. "We can't fight pork because it's institutionalized," said one who served in the previous Congress. "Hinahanap 'yan ng tao (People look for it). What we can do is just to look for projects that address the needs of our constituents."

But a congressman's constituents expect him to deliver more than just jobs or basic infrastructure like artesian wells, farm-to-market roads, barangay or social halls, basketball courts, classrooms or schoolbuildings, and health centers. Writes Lynda Jumilla, a senior reporter assigned to Congress: "The role of provider extends to, or overlaps with, that of a sympathetic friend or patron. A congressman is often asked to stand as wedding sponsor or baptismal godfather, and to do the rounds of wakes and burials. In political parlance, this is referred to as KBL — kasal (wedding), binyag (baptism), libing (burial). In most cases, the congressman is even expected to shoulder some of the expenses — a wedding or baptismal reception here, a coffin or a tomb there."

Assuming the role of patron thus entails a lot of money, and many legislators have conveniently parlayed their pork barrel into a steady source of funding for their patronage machine. "Ordinary people consider the congressman as the 'DSWD' — if someone is sick or dies, they run to him," a legislative officer says, likening lawmakers to the Department of Social Welfare and Development. "Some congressmen have limited means or nowhere to get the money for these extras so they put their pork in hospitals and save on out-of-pocket expenses except probably for the transportation."

There is, however, a limit on how pork barrel can be spent. Using public money for weddings and baptisms is definitely out of the question. The Commission on Audit (COA) also frowns on the use of pork to help defray the placement fees of constituents seeking jobs overseas.

COA, however, has no problem with pork being forked over for the sick, needy, or dead in a congressman's district. Thus, each year, the national government allows a substantial amount of pork barrel to be channeled to scholarships in state colleges and universities, subsidies to indigent patients in government hospitals, and funeral assistance to the poor.

Pork as a tool for political patronage, however, can extend as far as the executive branch. It is no accident, for instance, that the release of the allocations often coincides with the passage of a Palace-sponsored bill.

That pork funds have grown by leaps and bounds in the last decade can be traced to presidents in need of Congress support. The rise in pork was particularly notable during the Ramos administration, when the president and House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. used generous fund releases to convince congressmen to support Malacañang-initiated legislation. The Ramos era, in fact, became known as the "golden age of pork."

Through the years, though, congressmen have also taken care to look after their very own. More often than not, pork-barrel funds are funneled to projects in towns and cities where the lawmakers' own relatives have been elected to public office; thus, pork is a tool for building family power as well. COA has come across many instances where pork-funded projects ended up directly benefiting no less than the lawmaker or his or her relatives.

In Central Luzon, for example, money that ought to have gone to the purchase of a utility vehicle for rescue operations, disaster preparedness, and district operations of the provincial government was diverted instead to the purchase of a Nissan Patrol. The luxury vehicle also became the service vehicle of the congressman whose pork was used to buy it.

Down south, an engineering district never benefited from the motorcycle and photocopying machine acquired through a congresswoman's CDF supposedly for its use. These were transferred to the field office of the proponent right after their purchase.

But in the last three years, a new thinking on pork-funded projects and its capability to secure votes has emerged. As one congressman tells it, an increasing number of his colleagues now believe that more than government-funded projects, money spent to buy votes actually dictates their political fates. "At the start of the 1998 Congress, the talk was, what's your strategy, how are you going to win?" he says. "In 2001, there was no more talk of strategy. The question was, what's the going rate in your district?"

He says that in one of these tête-á-têtes, a congressman from an impoverished province claimed the going rate in his jurisdiction went as high as P1,500 to P3,000 per voter. "They don't just buy votes, they pay the antis so they will not vote," the legislator says.

Another congressman traces the irresistible lure of money to voters to the depths of poverty in the country. "During the final hour, the one who is going to give them P50, which they can use for their needs, is one they're going to vote for," he says. "What you did prior to that is glossed over. It is the immediacy of the need."

Vote buying as a tool to clinch an election victory is likely to change the way legislators use their pork barrel, says the legislator. "In our conversations, they say, 'you know, it's useless to have projects. Let's just save the money and then use it at the 11th hour… If you don't do that, when well-funded candidates come in, our projects will be forgotten. Don't count on utang na loob (debt of gratitude) from those you helped. They'll sell you out because it's the present that's important. Those projects, people don't see it as something they should thank you for personally.'"

A few months before the 2004 elections, a publicist of several members of the House estimated that more than half of all congressmen had not touched their pork for projects, saving it instead for reelection purposes. A legislator from Mindanao also describes politicians as having turned "desperate," with first-termers sweating the most in fear of losing their seats.

The problem with this new thinking is that the desperation among politicians can only breed and spread more desperation to the populace. As one lawmaker notes, "You have just one flashflood of money, you keep your people poor. It's like a time bomb and it's scary."



Part Two
Legislators Feed On Pork
by YVONNE T. CHUA and BOOMA B. CRUZ

IN THEORY and in law, the legislators' role in pork-barrel allocations remains limited to "consultation" to enable them to recommend priority projects. In practice, however, they have the final word on what projects should be funded.

The release of pork is based on the lawmakers' request to the Department of Budget Management (DBM), detailing the nature and location of the project they want, the implementing agency, and the funds required. This setup makes legislators the lords of pork-barrel funds. It also makes them natural magnets to contractors and suppliers who offer bribes so they can sell their goods and services.

No one knows exactly how much is lost to corruption in pork-funded projects. A long-time politician from the North who admits to accepting "small commissions" says that in a year, corruption in pork-barrel projects translates to about P12 billion in losses for the government.

In May 2002, Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr. gave his own estimate of how much the government loses to wrongdoing. In a speech seeking to rally his colleagues' support for the procurement reform bill, Andaya, chairman of the House appropriations committee, said P21 billion or a fifth of the government's P104-billion procurement budget in 2001 went to the pockets of legislators, officials, and contractors alone.

The amount lost is about half of the 2002 budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), and bigger than the budgets of state universities and colleges (P16.8 billion), the Department of Transportation and Communication (P13.3 billion), and the Department of Health (P11.8 billion).

The procurement budget includes the pork barrel of senators and congressional representatives. Going by Andaya's estimate, about P4 billion or a fifth of the P20 billion allocated for pork this year was likely lost to corruption.

But this may be an understatement. In 1998, former finance and budget secretary Salvador Enriquez estimated that as much 45 percent of pork funds went to "commissions," particularly transactions involving medical supplies and educational materials. The kickbacks from infrastructure projects, which are traditionally more expensive, ran up to 30 percent of the total project cost, he said.

In 2001, Enriquez asserted that only about 60 percent of government funds goes to the implementation of development projects and activities. The balance lines the pockets of a "web of conspirators" that he said were "difficult to pinpoint." Following Enriquez's estimate, the bribes paid from pork funds this year would be in the range of P8 billion of P20 billion earmarked for pork.

One veteran legislator says that congressmen tend to be more tempted to accept commissions from pork-barrel projects than senators. That's because they have to worry about pleasing their constituents, he says.

"Contractors give me money, around five percent of the project cost, because they know I need it," says the congressman. "I don't demand, but I accept what they give me. I need it to help my constituents. This is common practice. It will be difficult to name a colleague who does not benefit from these projects."

As a rule, contractors are careful in dealing with senators. Senator Panfilo Lacson himself says many contractors have approached him to ask how big a cut he wants from his pork-barrel projects. But that may not have been a wise move, since Lacson, who has made a study of the pork-barrel system, has filed charges with the Ombudsman against people who, he says, had hands that were greasy with pork money.

In 2002, Lacson spent P147 million of his P150-million pork funds for projects that included building farm-to-market roads and supplying water to some towns. At least two of those projects, however, led him to file graft cases against two members of his own staff, as well as against a DPWH regional director, a district engineer, and a municipal mayor. According to Lacson, these people made money from the transactions, which made the government lose millions of pesos in the process.

Last year, the senator announced that he was giving up his P200-million pork barrel. He not only urged his colleagues at the Senate to do the same, but also called for the abolition of pork.

By his own estimates, Lacson says only less than half of the taxpayers' money actually goes to projects. He figures the breakdown of the kickbacks of the project proponents and implementers is something like this: 20 percent, or the lion's share, to the legislator who identified the project; 14 percent to the contractor; 10 percent to the district engineer and other DPWH officials; five to 10 percent to the governor or mayor; two percent to the barangay captain; and two percent goes to the Commission on Audit (COA) official who is supposed to be the watchdog of the people's money.

Even the billboards that advertise the projects and their proponents are overpriced, says Lacson.

A big-time contractor who handles public works projects of senators and congressmen confirms the continuing practice of legislators drawing kickbacks from pork. But he gives a different kickback breakdown: legislator, five to 10 percent; DPWH, five to 10 percent; DBM, one percent; COA, 0.5 percent. The contractor says the amounts have gone down slightly because the payment of VAT or valued added tax, a stipulation of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, has eaten into the usual share of legislators and DPWH personnel from pork. VAT accounts for 10 percent of the project cost.

A senator points to dredging, asphalt overlays, and farm-to-market roads as the most corruption-riddled infrastructure projects. "There is simply no way to monitor how well these are implemented," says the senator. "If they tell you they will dredge x cubic meters who will check where the hell that number of cubic meters went? The same with asphalt overlay. Whether it is one centimeter or 10 inches, nobody knows."

Another contractor adds that the public will never even know how many times a certain project has been approved for repair by how many agencies.

A COA insider confirms auditors partake of payoffs, but clarifies that the state auditing agency's total share is bigger than many assume. "Decisions (of auditors) are really for sale," says the insider. "You have the inspector who does the after-project report and gets 0.5 percent of the pork. You have the director who gives his opinion or approves the report. And you go up the ladder. For COA, that must be about 10 percent to 15 percent of the pork all in all. It's a small price to pay for politicians when you think of the possibility of going to court."

A 1998 PCIJ study showed that the biggest kickbacks of legislators come from the purchase of medical supplies and educational materials funded by the Countrywide Development Fund and the Congressional Initiative Allocation. With such purchases, grease money can take up from 40 to 65 percent of project cost. In comparison, commissions from infrastructure projects ranged from 12 percent to 20 percent.

Lawmakers get half of the cut as soon as the deal is struck; the balance, upon the issuance by the DBM of the Special Allotment Release Order (SARO) and/or the Notice of Cash Allocation (NCA). The SARO gives the implementing agency the authority to contract goods and services, while the NCA is an assurance that funds for the project are already available in the implementing agency's bank account.

Legislators, however, do not have a monopoly on the largesse from pork-barrel projects. One PCIJ study tracing the flow of pork, for instance, indicates that heads of implementing agencies get 10 to 12 percent of total project cost upon issuance of the SARO/NCA. Budget personnel are allotted one to two percent "to expedite the release" of funds to the implementing agency.

After the bidding and during the execution of projects by the contractors, local officials are given their share, too: seven percent to the mayor and three percent to the barangay captain, all paid after the issuance of the necessary permits.

During the Estrada administration, kickbacks from various items due to overprice, nondistribution, or cash conversion (in the case of National Food Authority or NFA rice for distribution) reached as high as 50 percent of total pork funding. A congressional staff member also recalls, "The rice subsidy was the favorite of many congressmen because they could give away just a few and then the rest they would then sell to rice traders. That became rampant until finally it was stopped because too many legislators could no longer explain where much of the rice was going."

Before the practice was halted, congressmen had poured P636.5 million of their pork into the rice subsidy programs in 2001. The amount accounted for 40 percent or the biggest share of the first tranche-amounting to P1.62 billion-of the Priority Development Assistance Fund or PDAF released that year.

But another congressional staff member says legislators found a way to go around this. Soon, the favorite pork project of wily lawmakers became funding "local government unit capability building"-which could be "almost anything," says the staff member. From 33 percent of the first tranche of the PDAF in 2001, the share of these types of projects leapt to 60 percent of the second tranche of the facility that very year.

Often, the project involved the distribution of educational materials, which, with the help of local government officials, could easily be faked. "The money could look used up even if there wasn't anything distributed," the congressional employee says. "All you need is the cooperation of the local executive."

This scheme remains popular. But lawmakers, contractors, and government regulators talk of different percentages and parameters, and give varying justifications for the practice.

Allegations of anomalies attending pork-barrel projects have prompted the DBM to limit the funds' use to areas that are less prone to corruption like scholarships and medical assistance. The DBM under the Arroyo administration has thus prohibited the use of pork funds to buy NFA rice, medicines, and textbooks and supplementary materials.

In 2003, Congress appended a special provision in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) allowing its members to use a maximum of 10 percent of their PDAF to procure rice and other basic commodities from the NFA. Such authority was included by President Arroyo among the items for conditional implementation in her veto message. Although spared from direct veto, the disbursement of funds to buy NFA rice required that appropriate guidelines first be drawn up.

Meanwhile, contractors say that while they are now wary of approaching Lacson, not all senators are above cutting deals with them. Unlike their colleagues in the House, members of the Senate are more discreet, say contractors and Senate insiders.

After a brief casual meeting, negotiations for commissions are coursed through coordinators, usually the senator's children, sibling, chief of staff, or project manager, says a contractor. Some congressmen adopt the same modus operandi.

The children of a former senator were said to be part of their father's multimillion-peso gravy train. According to some contractors, they committed projects and accepted the commissions on behalf of the senator. One contractor recalls advancing P5 million to the ex-senator's son for a P50-million project. When the project didn't push through, the contractor asked for either a refund of his "earnest money" or another project. The senator's son kept the money and the contractor was given another project.

The contractor says there are also cases where a legislator's close aide would cut a deal for himself without his boss's knowledge. The chief of staff of a senator known for turning down commissions, for example, once asked a contractor for a sports utility vehicle. But the aide failed to deliver the promised contract. The contractor, who had made sure the vehicle remained registered in his name, took back the P1.3-million car.

A Congress insider says some contractors are asked for commissions by the legislator's staff who assist them. In some instances, the contractors voluntary hand the staff "tips." And sometimes the liquidation of funds is padded. The insider says a few chiefs of staff band together and share tips on how to make commissions.

Contractors say they make up for the bribes by ensuring that these are covered by the overprice in project estimates. Some contractors also ignore project specifications to ensure bigger profit margins.

Once an understanding about a project is reached, the lawmaker instructs a member of his staff to write the head of the Senate finance committee or the House appropriations committee to identify the projects. The letter is forwarded to the DBM and the implementing agency.

For public works projects, the contractor then goes to the DPWH regional director with the legislator's letter. He proceeds to the engineering group, which prepares the specifications of the projects based on the contractor's requirement. After this, a bidding notice is announced through the newspapers and the contractor with the legislator's letter is expected to "win" the award.

Except for the amount of funds at the senators' disposal, transactions involving the pork barrel of congressmen follow almost the same pattern. Unlike in the Senate, though, suppliers and contractors openly trawl the Batasan complex, especially when the SAROs and NCAs are issued. Some of them seem to feel so at home at the House that they can be seen cooling their heels in the session hall or bantering with Congress personnel.

The same suppliers and contractors also visited the congressman's office carrying bulky bags or envelopes. Says the staffer: "You'd know right away if it was payoff time. The money would be inside an envelope or bag. Once the (supplier or contractor) came out, the envelope would be gone or the bag would suddenly look flat. And then we'd suddenly have free merienda."


Copyright © 2004 All rights reserved.
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM

More Than Half The House Doing "Dual" Role

More Than Half The House Doing "Dual" Role
by VINIA M. DATINGUINOO and AVIGAIL OLARTE

RAMON DURANO SR., patriarch of one of Cebu's political clans, once said, "No combination can work better for a person than for him to be in politics and business at the same time." Perhaps that is why the proportion of members in the 12th House who divide their time between business concerns and lawmaking remains one in every two, just like in the previous Congress.

In the 9th house, which was in office from 1992 to 1995, only 15 percent of the 199 members were involved in business while in public office. By the 11th Congress, half of the 220 members described themselves as entrepreneurs.

This trend continues in the current Congress, where 123 lawmakers—actually more than half the 214-member House—admit to holding onto their posts in their various businesses even after they have already taken their legislative seats.

At least 22 members of the House or 10 percent were full-time business executives before they were elected in May, and some may need time to make the transition into the public sector. Political analysts also say these representatives may have legitimate reasons for pursuing "dual roles." But they note as well that the situation only makes it all the more tempting for them to push bills reflecting their own business concerns.

Eric Gutierrez, in his groundbreaking 1994 study, found many lawmakers in the 9th House authored bills that would benefit their own interests. Twenty-seven Mindanao representatives who were all landowners, for example, filed a bill seeking the suspension of agrarian reform in Mindanao until the year 2020. Ilocos Rep. Eric Singson, meanwhile, filed a bill allowing locally made cigarettes with foreign brand names to be exported, and giving tax rebates for tobacco manufacturers and traders. Both the lawmaker and his wife were—and still are—into tobacco trading. Then there was Zamboanga City Rep. Ma. Clara Lobregat, who proposed a bill ordering the soap and detergent industry to shift to 100-percent-use of coconut-base chemicals. At the time, Lobregat was officer of at least seven coconut mills.

These legislators had an ally in Congressman Mariano Yulo, then chair of the ethics committee, who said that no conflict-of-interest occurs if the bills would benefit not only the congressmen but their constituents as well.

But their detractors included the likes of former Sen. Rene Saguisag, who said legislators must not advocate measures that benefit themselves. According to Saguisag, who co-authored the code of ethics for government officials, lawmakers who engage in a particular business while in public office should at least inform the House.

Yet should the analysts' fears come true, there may be less bills filed concerning agricultural lands in the present House compared to previous Congresses. Or at the very least, fewer members may support such bills, which may not necessarily benefit small-time farmers.

This is because the percentage of agricultural landowners among the legislators has decreased since the 11th House, where 42 percent declared owning agricultural land. In the current House, 38 percent or 82 of the representatives declared agricultural landholdings of varying sizes.

Even among the five wealthiest members of the current House, not one has any agricultural landholdings, according to their own Statements of Assets and Liabilities (SALs), despite the diversity in the sources of their riches.

For instance, Augusto Syjuco Jr. (2nd district, Iloilo), who has a net worth of over P248 million, holds interests in real estate, manufacturing, and financial firms. He was a businessman before he first landed a seat in Congress in 1998.

Vicente Sandoval Jr. (1st district, Palawan) and Abdullah Dimaporo (2nd district, Lanao del Norte), both of whom have net assets in the range of P100 to P200 million, are likewise into manufacturing.

Some 16 percent of the current legislators, though, own stocks in various agricultural enterprises. These include Antonio Floirendo Jr. (2nd district, Davao del Norte) who has interests in four Davao-based agribusiness firms, and Celso Lobregat (Zamboanga City), who has the same number.

There could be a rise in the number of bills filed regarding real estate and property development, since 21 percent of the present lawmakers have investments in these sectors. This represents a slight increase from the 17 percent posted in the previous House. Cynthia Villar (Las Piñas), the second wealthiest legislator with net assets reaching more than P331 million, listed four real estate firms in her SAL while Francisco Perez II (2nd district, Batangas), son of Justice Secretary Hernando Perez, wrote down six.

Lawmakers who are into manufacturing make up another 15 percent, like Juan Pablo Bondoc (4th district, Pampanga), who is stockholder in at least nine such firms. Other business sectors where representatives have interests in are hotel and travel (13 percent), communication (seven percent), and banking (six percent).

Surprisingly enough, Mark Jimenez (6th district, Manila), whose over P400 million in assets make him the richest among the present representatives, declared no business interests in his SAL. So too did 90 other congressmen, among them the five poorest in the House, such as Crispin Beltran and Satur Ocampo, both party-list representatives of the leftist organization Bayan Muna. Beltran reported a net worth of P70,000 and Ocampo a little over P700,000.

Jimenez, who is wanted by U.S. authorities for such things as mail fraud and is thought by many to have been involved in the biggest business scams done during the Estrada administration, has made eyebrows go even higher by filing a bill addressing the activities of racketeers and syndicates in the country.

As touched with irony is a bill filed by Ted Failon (1st district, Leyte). The ex-ABS-CBN radio and TV news anchor who once moonlighted as an endorser for a local alcoholic drink is now seeking the regulation of liquor and cigarette advertisements.

As party-list representatives, the likes of Beltran and Ocampo are expected to fight for legislation on issues that would otherwise have very slim chances of being put on the table. Already, Beltran has filed a bill granting a P125-salary increase for workers. Ocampo, meanwhile, wants to prohibit the entry, sale and processing in the country of food products with genetically engineered organisms.

Observers say Beltran, Ocampo and Liza Maza, another party-list representative of Bayan Muna, would do well to follow the example of Loretta Ann Rosales (Akbayan) and not Benjamin Cruz (Butil). Both Rosales and Cruz are now in their second terms in the House.

Rosales was perhaps the most productive among the 11th House party-list representatives, having filed 18 bills of national significance. Most of her proposals sought electoral reforms, such as absentee voting for overseas workers and election modernization schemes. Rosales also filed bills related to human rights issues such as unjust detention, as well as a magna carta for teachers and a national land and water use policy.

Cruz, in contrast, filed only one bill in the previous House, seeking to establish a comprehensive irrigation policy and the condonation of unpaid irrigation service fees.

As it is, this House has only five party-list representatives in all, and it is all too easy for their voices to be drowned out by the traditional politicians who seem in control of Congress once more.

It was in the previous House, where these trapos were lesser in number, that some of the country's more progressive pieces of legislation were passed. These included the Clean Air Act, which bans incinerators and legislates fuel standards and the Solid Waste Management Act that calls for waste minimalization and segregation.

It was also the 11th House that impeached a President.

But at least the rich families of the current Congress's "traditional" legislators thought it wise to invest in education, resulting in a House in which the members have educational qualifications that are as equally impressive as those of their predecessors.

It is no shock, of course, to learn that the biggest proportion of lawmakers are graduates of business courses, with a number of them pursuing further studies in business and economics overseas. Thirty-five or some 16 percent are graduates of political science, the second top undergraduate course of the current members.

Like in the 11th House, the University of the Philippines has the most number of alumni—34—among the current legislators. Ateneo de Manila University has 20 graduates, De La Salle University, 16, and the University of Santo Tomas, 13.

One-fourth of all members hold at least one master's degree, some from overseas universities. Six have doctorates, while 21 had enrolled in advanced or specialized studies.

A significant number—94, or about 44 percent—trained in law. In the three previous Congresses, the proportion of representatives who had attended law school averaged 45 percent.

The youngest lawyers in this House—Rolando Andaya Jr., Francis Escudero and Joseph Ace Durano—come from some of the country's most enduring political clans. Two of the more veteran lawyers—Emilio Espinosa Jr. and Carlos Imperial—come from a long line of politician-lawyers in their families as well. Imperial's uncle, Carlos A. Imperial, was a member of the First Philippine Assembly in 1907 who later became associate justice of the Supreme Court. His father, Domingo, was a senator in 1934 and was also once an associate justice of the Court of Appeals. Emilio, meanwhile, has a lawyer-brother, Tito, who was a Masbate representative for two terms from 1987.

These politicians may or may not have read An Anarchy of Families, in which author Alfred McCoy observed that legal skills seem to stand out in "the ability of politicians to capitalize upon the opportunities of office." McCoy pointed in particular to Ramon Durano Sr., whose legal education "allowed him to translate his political influence into private wealth."

But it was also the business empire built by Ramon Sr. that made it possible for the Durano clan to hold onto power and to use the acquired resources for its younger generation of politicians.

Today, Joseph Ace Durano (5th district, Cebu) is on his second term in the House. His father, Ramon Durano III, is mayor of Danao City; an uncle, Ramon Jr., is vice mayor in the same city; a brother, Thomas Mark, and a cousin, Oscar, are city councilors; another uncle is vice mayor of Sogod; and an aunt is a provincial board member.


Copyright © 2001 All rights reserved.
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM

Disorder in the House

While congressmen have been quick to pounce on the Supreme Court, they have always been reluctant to move against their own.
by Yvonne T. Chua


IT’S A lawmaking body, after all, so it seems to make sense that the House of Representatives also makes time to run after crooks. At least that’s what it said it was doing when it insisted on impeaching the Supreme Court chief justice for alleged anomalies in the Judicial Development Fund.

But while the House doggedly pursued the impeachment of Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., the same cannot be said about how the legislature treats complaints against its wayward members. Of the 83 complaints the PCIJ managed to retrieve from the chamber’s archives division and committee on ethics and privileges, a mere handful were meted punishment. In contrast, 41 percent were dismissed or unacted upon, even though these complaints included allegations of mauling, rape, and murder.

Usually, the reasons the House cites in dismissing or archiving complaints are technical. For example, the committee on ethics and privileges will take on a complaint only if it is an order of the House, an endorsement or referral of the Speaker or the committee on rules, a petition filed by any member, or a sworn complaint. But because not too many citizens are familiar with the internal House rules and procedures, their complaints are often placed on the fast track to nowhere.

That was the fate suffered by a complaint filed in the current Congress by the Mindanao Federation of Small-Scale Miners Association against Surigao del Sur Rep. Prospero Pichay. The association had accused Pichay of backing big miners and opposing the appointment of Heherson Alvarez to the environment department to protect the major players. Unfortunately, the association’s complaint wasn’t made under oath.

Neither was that of Teresita P. Velayo against Nueva Ecija Rep. Julita Villareal. Velayo’s complaint was more personal, since she said her brother’s killer had been taken into custody by Villareal. But since Velayo’s complaint, filed in the 10th Congress, was unsworn, it was dismissed.

THE 1987 Constitution empowers the Senate and the House to each “determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and with the concurrence of two-thirds of all its members, suspend or expel a member. A penalty of suspension, when imposed, shall not exceed 60 days.”

The House itself considers disorderly behavior to be any of the following: a violation of a law; a violation of any rule or regulation of the House relating to the conduct of any individual in the performance of his or her duty as a member of the House; or improper conduct engaged in by a member that may reflect upon the House from the moment he or she takes his or her oath.

But because it has tended to dismiss or archive complaints, the House has just a few cases to use as basis for determining what constitutes “disorderly behavior” among its members.

One of these occurred more than four decades ago. In 1960, Rep. Sergio Osmeña Jr. was suspended for 15 months for “most serious disorderly behavior in the history of the representative government in the Philippines.” Osmeña’s offense, in fact, was delivering a privilege speech in which he criticized President Carlos P. Garcia’s veto of the anti-graft bill.

Apparently, Garcia had objected to a provision banning relatives of the president, vice president, Senate president, or House Speaker within the third degree of consanguinity or affinity to directly or indirectly intervene in any business transaction, contract, or application with the government. Exempted from the ban were relatives who had already been dealing with the government before these public officials’ assumption of office.

In his speech, Osmeña had also said Garcia had “10 million reasons” for vetoing the rice and corn nationalization bill and cited published reports that the president was tolerating “corruption, percenting and graft.” He then called on his peers to override the president’s veto, saying, “By this act (veto), Mr. President, you have announced to the entire world that you are on the side of the crooks and racketeers who surround you and infest the government.”

By today’s standards, Osmeña’s speech would be considered quite tame. But those were the days when parties still mattered, and the congressman from the Liberal Party had made his remarks in a Nacionalista-dominated House. Instead of supporting him, Osmeña’s colleagues turned on him, declaring his speech “unparliamentary.” They also said he had having “directly attacked, without basis in truth and in fact, the President of the Philippines, in the most scurrilous, malicious, reckless and irresponsible manner…impaired the dignity and prestige of the presidency and violated the honored traditions of inter-departmental courtesy and harmony between the executive and legislative branches of the government.”

San Juan Rep. Jose Mari Gonzalez also got the ire of many of his peers in the 11th Congress after he slapped sergeant-at-arms Bayani Fabic during the chamber’s tense impeachment proceedings against then President Joseph Estrada. But because Gonzalez owed up to what he had done and apologized to Fabic, the committee on ethics only reprimanded him. (Fabic, however, would not be appeased so easily and went all the way to court and had Gonzalez arrested shortly after the 2001 elections.)

Ironically, the House has a history of being more forgiving toward legislators who have done much worse than Gonzalez. In 1955, for instance, a House committee investigating an infraction committed by Rep. Rodolfo Ganzon decided not to push through censuring him after he apologized to those he had offended. Ganzon’s disorderly behavior: At a closed-door hearing of the committee on labor and industrial relations, he had drawn and leveled his pistol at Rep. Justino Benito during a heated exchange.


SOMETIMES, the House junks a complaint because the one who filed it has lost interest in pursuing it, at least in Congress. Josefino ‘Bujie’ Manansala, for example, withdrew his complaint against Bulacan Rep. Wilhelmino Sy Alvarado last June, saying he would try his luck in the courts instead. Alvarado is Manansala’s uncle. But neither blood ties nor his being a legislator stopped Alvarado from trying to slam his nephew’s face on a table at a wedding in May 2002, and then firing an Uzi in front of Manansala’s house while shouting expletives at him.

Manansala’s complaint was sworn and accompanied by a police investigation report, as well as a resolution from the Hagonoy Sanggunian condemning Alvarado’s alleged actions. Why Manansala decided not to push through with his complaint is anybody’s guess. But then it’s not as if legislators are falling over themselves to encourage complainants. Although congressmen seem to devote a lot of time deliberating over many of the complaints, the result of that is by the time the House has adjourned, no resolution is made and the complaints are banished to the archives, most of them sure never to see the light of day again.

The rules set by the House also seem to have shielded legislators more than they have protected the public from erring congressman. Take the one that says the House committee on ethics acquires jurisdiction over complaints only when the alleged acts or omissions were committed by the legislator during his or her incumbency. That means there is no chance that the current Congress—the 12th—will look into the acts of a member that were committed in the 11th House, or when the legislator was still in another public office or in the private sector.

This was the position of the present House’s ethics committee when it dismissed a complaint against Rep. Rolex Suplico. The Iloilo congressman had been charged with abusing his authority and committing conflicts of interest when, through a resolution during the 11th Congress, he “masterminded” the filing of a petition to revoke water permits issued to Kimberly Clark Philippines. The act had allegedly favored Goodwill Trading, one of whose shareholders happened to be Suplico’s father-in-law.

Yet another rule of the House committee on ethics states, “If the subject matter of the complaint against a member of the House of Representatives is pending in another judicial, quasi-judicial or administrative body, the Committee shall not take its case on the merits until final judgment has been rendered by such body.”

The House has long observed this principle of sub judice. In 1952, in the Second Congress, the committee on internal government and privileges decided to the sit on the case of rebellion with murder and arson—a nonbailable offense—against Rep. Narciso Umali. This was despite the Court of First Instance in Quezon having already convicted him of the same crime, for which he had drawn a sentence of life imprisonment. But since the case was still on appeal, the House cited legislative precedents in the United States and Philippines that “frown upon the suspension of a member of the House during the pendency of a criminal case against him in view of the great evil of depriving his constituents of their rightful representation in Congress.”

What Umali had done, according to court records, was this: He had asked Huk rebels to stage a raid in Tiaong, Quezon in the evening of November 14, 1951 in a bid to eliminate his political rival, Mayor Marcial Punzalan. The rebels burned down several houses, including that of Punzalan’s, and looted two stories. The rampage left one policeman and two civilians killed, and six others wounded.

In 1954, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s ruling, although it said Umali and his two co-defendants were guilty of sedition, not rebellion. By then Umali was no longer a congressman.

Decades later, the 10th House would also refuse to suspend Agusan del Sur Rep. Ceferino Paredes, who had been charged with graft by the Ombudsman for acts he committed when he was governor. The Sandiganbayan had ordered the House to suspend Paredes for 90 days, an order that was affirmed by the Supreme Court. But the lower chamber, then led by Speaker Jose de Venecia, rallied behind Paredes, and even threatened to cut the budgets of the Ombudsman and judiciary to P1 year if these insisted on implementing the suspension order.

The sub judice rule has benefited many other congressmen, especially after it was broadened in the early 1990s to include cases pending not only before the courts, but even before the prosecutor’s office, Ombudsman, or other investigatory bodies. Small wonder that Baltazar Judith, a former legislative staff officer of Lanao del Sur Rep. Mariano Badelles, was “very disgusted” when the 9th House would not take up his complaint against the Mindanao congressman for nonpayment of salary, withholding salary differential and benefits, forgery of his signature, and falsification of checks—all because a similar case was pending before the Ombudsman.

Juliet Anosan, an accountant of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in the Cordillera Administrative Region, probably felt more than disgust when the 9th House set aside her widely publicized complaint against Mountain Province Rep. Victor Dominguez. The House’s reason was that the case was also pending before the Ombudsman and the Baguio prosecutor’s office.

Anosan had gotten entangled with Dominguez when she refused to release a P1.85- million check to a construction company owned by the legislator’s brother-in-law. The DPWH had earlier rescinded its contract with the firm. In retaliation, Dominguez had reportedly not only threatened Anosan, but had also had her mauled and later gotten her transferred to the Manila office.

It was the sub judice rule as well that spelled the end to Marawi City Mayor Abbas S. Basman’s complaint against Lanao del Sur Rep. Mamintal N. Adiong during the 10th House. Adiong had taken his nephew Fais Ambol (alias Commander Cobra) into his custody when the latter was being arrested for the kidnap-slay of 17 engineers and workers of the National Power Corp. The legislator had failed to turn over Ambol to the police and prosecutor when asked to do so. Worse, while under Adiong’s custody, Ambol led a band that ambushed a police patrol team and killed a police captain.

So far, though, Zamboanga del Norte Rep. Romeo Jalosjos has been the biggest beneficiary of the sub judice rule. In 1997, Jalosjos was convicted in the lower courts for raping an 11-year-old, among other things. Yet despite repeated calls for his expulsion, the House allowed him to remain in office, even while under detention, in the 10th, 11th, and early part of the 12th Congress until his conviction became final.

The Supreme Court, however, refused to let Jalosjos out of jail to attend sessions of Congress while his case was pending. It observed, “(T)here is an unfortunate misimpression in the public mind that election or appointment to high government office, by itself, frees the official from the common restraints of general law.”

Jalosjos was finally dropped from the chamber’s roster in 2002, when the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision to sentence him to reclusion perpetua on two counts of statutory rape and six counts of acts of lasciviousness.


Copyright © 2003 All rights reserved.
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM