The Capiz Times Point & Counterpoint Mistaken Rule, Nothing’s Whole Virgilio Clavel Everybody makes mistakes. For several days now, the broadcast media feasted on the rift between the Office of the Mayor and the Sanggunian Panlungsod of Roxas (SP-R). Vexed that Capisnons would be misled, this political update needs to be put forward. The political rift surfaced when Vice Mayor Ronnie Dadivas fingered Mayor Angel Allan Celino a suspect in the illegal or fraudulent selling of tricycle franchises. Dadivas triggered the creation of Committee of the Whole (CoW), as allegedly constituted on October 14 SP-R session, to investigate the “franchise scam.” For reasons known to him alone, SP-R member Julius Abela initiated the inclusion of item 18 in the Business of the Day of the Sanggunian’s 62nd Regular Session held on October 28, 2014. Item 18 reads, “Letter dated 24 October 2014 of Hon. Julius L. Abela, Chairman, Committee on Rules & Ordinances, on the issue whether the creation of the Committee on the Whole to investigate the alleged selling of Tricycle franchise by Vice Mayor Ronnie T. Dadivas is valid or not, if not validly constituted what are its effects, implications and consequences.” During SP-R 62nd Regular Session, Abela moved to defer the adoption of the October 14, 2014 Minutes of the Previous Session. In the next 63rd Regular Session on November 4, he informed the City Sanggunian that said Minutes, as requested by the Committee on Rules & Ordinance (CRO), had not yet been submitted. The non-submission of Minutes prompted Abela to refuse to put his signature on the same. Abela asserted that the November 4 Calendar of Business had “no valid agenda.” He has a legitimate point based on Rule VI, Sec. V-1 of the SP-R’s Internal Rules of Procedure (IRP; City Ordinance No. 030-2009) which commands the CRO to exercise responsibility to pass on, hence authority over, “All Matters relating to the aspects of an action taken up or submitted to the Sanggunian; x x x Approval of the Agenda and all matters relating to order and decorum as outlined in the Internal Rules of Procedure.” This legislative intent is reiterated in Rule V, Sec. II-b of the City’s IRP, to quote the pertinent part: x x x the Secretary to the Sanggunian… shall prepare the agenda, subject to the calendar of the Chairman of the Committee on Rules particularly Rule VII x x x With due respect, there is no enumerated provision in Rule V of the SP-R’s Internal Rules of Procedure (IRP) that the Presiding Officer is authorized or empowered to approve the agenda of the Calendar of Business. At this juncture, I submit that the Abela’s and Dadivas respective discourses are partly correct, not wholly precise to establish legal validity. I suspect, miscommunication fueled by political passion or pressure animated the rift. A historical review on the concept of Committee of the Whole (CoW) can clarify the rift, thus help resolve the issue raised in Calendar of Business Item 18 of the SP-R’s Regular Session. A Committee of the Whole (CoW), first of all, is an inherent, not an expressed, power of a Sanggunian in Philippine jurisdiction. Normally, CoW “is a device in which a legislative body or other deliberative assembly is considered one large committee. All members of the legislative body are members of such committee. This is usually done for the purposes of discussion and debate of the details of bills and other main motions.” (Wikipedia). The Committee of the Whole (CoW) is resorted to by a deliberative assembly or council where or when—1) the assembly does not wish to refer to a committee; 2) the subject matter is not well digested and put into proper form for its definite action; 3) and for any reason, that the assembly or council desires to consider a subject with all the freedom of an ordinary committee (2013 Robert’s Rules Online: RulesOnline). To form one requires a “motion to commit” a legislative subject matter or concern to a Committee of the Whole than to a standing committee. The Abela’s discourse asserted the absence of a “main motion” to create a CoW. The two or three SP-R members present during the alleged Dadivas-sponsored CoW is debatable. Given the requirement of a valid quorum, the minimum five-person committee membership, and the required majority vote to create a CoW during a regular session of the Sanggunian Panlungsod of Roxas, the Abela discourse is fairly reasonable. The Dadivas discourse, on the other hand, appears to be acceptable too but may not be quite legally acceptable. Leaving for a while the issue of the legality of the CoW creation, Sanggunian Presiding Officer Dadivas maintained that the Sanggunian Panlungsod of Roxas has authority to investigate the truth, the reason why the Committee of the Whole “has been organized.” He opined, reechoing Pres. Noynoy Aquino’s call, “(A)ng sentro sang iskandalo nagapangayu sang solusyon”… (agud matapna, annotation supplied) ang “pagbaligya-anay sang city (franchise) numbers.” Nga-a indi pagpangunahan sang Executive? Kung indi naton pag-imbestigahan, sin-o ang maga imbestiga? Democracy is alive, and we live in a (country, annotation supplied) democracy where checks and balance is paramount. Under the powers separation doctrine in Philippine democracy, the Sanggunian Panlungsod is a co-equal, separate and independent body,,, Drowned by the textual life of rules, by contestable facts used as political ammunition, and collision of interpretive application of these rules and facts to the present issue, Gen. Eisenhower once wrote: When you’re wrong, admit to it…Learn from your mistakes. “A fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from the one who does.” (Herbert Prochnov). In the words of James Madison, “(P)ower is of an encroaching nature” and must be “effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it.” Elsewhere in his Federalist Papers, he stressed, “(T)hese checking and balancing components combine elements of both representative and deliberative legitimacy, while preventing any branch from overstepping its constitutionally assigned bounds. Checks and balances thus operate as both shield and sword for liberty. They protect against the overweaning ambition of any one branch of government, while affirmatively supporting the values of political freedom and equal consideration that render government just.” (To be continued)
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 00:45:34 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015