THE 2025 budget deliberation of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) last September 9, 2024 before the House Committee on Appropriations was very exciting, and very enlightening too.
That was the second hearing set by the committee, minus the physical attendance of VP Inday Sara; on the first hearing, she was present and that was the time the “shimenet” meme came up.
Justifying her non-attendance, the VP sent a letter to the Speaker relaying her intention to “forego” with the defense of the OVP 2025 budget by question and answer, and leaving it up to the House to take action on her proposed budget.
The excitement came up when partylist representative Congressman Rodante Marcoleta stood up and in an impassioned speech, took to task the vice chairwoman of the appropriations committee and Marikina representative Stella Quimbo on the issue of non-observance of tradition in the House.
* * *
Marcoleta recalled that since 2004 up to the present as a member of the House of Representatives, he stressed that the members of the House have always observed and followed the long-held tradition of respect accorded to the Office of the President and the Office of the Vice President on budget deliberation.
The House, he said, has always observed this tradition of “not disturbing” or “leaving as is” the proposed budget of the OP and the OVP.
In fact, he recalled that in the 2022 OVP budget deliberation, it was the minority member of the House who moved, and was instantly seconded, in a matter of minutes for the termination of the budget deliberation.
And in the 2023 OVP budget deliberation, he added, no less than presidential son and senior deputy House Speaker Sandro Marcos who moved, and also duly seconded, in a matter of minutes, for the termination of the budget deliberation. Perennial oppositor Rep. France Castro strongly objected but her objection was effectively “killed” when there was division of the House and only 3 Makabayan bloc members supported her objection.
These instances, Marcoleta emphasized, clearly showed that the House has continuously and assiduously observed and followed the long-held tradition of leaving “as is” the budget of the OVP.
So he questioned if this long-held tradition has already been discarded/not observed by the House, and if so, was the Committee on Appropriations empowered or authorized to do so.
These questions were prompted by what Marcoleta observed as the clearly “scripted” budget deliberations where members of the Committee who are allies of the House Speaker took turns in questioning the items included in the OVP 2025 budget.
He also mentioned that as part of the observance of the long-held tradition in the House, it was always the member of the minority who was given the first slot in interpellating the member who delivered the privilege speech.
Another long-held tradition, he said, that is still observed even up to the present is the right of the Member of the House to refuse to be interpellated, after delivering a privilege speech, by the simple expedient of sitting down after the speech. Marcoleta said nobody, not even the Speaker, can force the member to answer questions or be interpellated about his privilege speech when he sits down after the speech.
* * *
When he repeated his 2 questions to Quimbo – whether the House has now discarded the long-held tradition and whether the Committee was empowered to do so, Quimbo answered No to both questions.
But when Marcoleta reiterated his motion to terminate the budget deliberation, in observance to the long-held tradition, there was an instant objection and following House Rules, there was division of the House and Marcoleta got only 3 votes to support his motion, and was “killed” in the process.
Quimbo then resolved to continue with the deliberation which prompted Marcoleta to question the apparent contradiction that while Quimbo implied that they are still observing the long-held tradition, yet, they are continuing with the “question and answer” session.
But Quimbo ruled that Marcoleta’s clarification was not in order.
* * *
Marcoleta later said that it was also ridiculous for Members of the Appropriations Committee to focus and “feast” on the issue of the Notice of Disallowance issued by the COA against the OVP because one, it was not yet final and two, the OVP still has to answer the observations of the COA.
From the records, Marcoleta said, the OVP still has until February next year to answer or comment on the Notice of Disallowance, and there is still a chance that COA may give due course to the answer/comment and disregard the Notice of Disallowance altogether, so it was still premature to even ascribe wrongdoing on the part of the OVP.
Marcoleta theorized that he would probably ask the COA one basic question – how many, and who, among the current members of the House, have been issued Notices of Disallowance by the COA and answering his own question, he said the COA would probably say 99% of them have been issued such Notice.
We shall have more of this in our next episodes.
* * *
Meanwhile, the circus in the House is now in full swing.
A party-list member of the House of Representatives tried to get former PCSO general manager PCol Royina Garma to admit that she was “special” to PRRD because she was appointed to that position despite the lack of credentials.
Garma answered that she didn’t feel that she was close or had special relations to PRRD.
So what was the reaction of the party-list representative?
He moved to cite Garma in contempt because she was “evading to answer the question” kuno.
It was unclear why, despite the given answer, and despite the tears shed in desperation, the party-list representative still insisted that she was evasive, and deserving to be detained (imprisoned) for committing a contemptuous act against the House.
But that’s the rule, and the tradition, in the House.
Luoy intawon si Garma.
Gusto seguro sa nangutana nga motubag si Garma nga special siya ni PRRD pero kay lahi man ang tubag ni Garma, kalaboso dayon siya, thanks to the “benevolence” of the honorables in the House.
