Contact Details

Rm. N-411, House of Representatives, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines
+63 2 931 5497, +63 2 931 5001 local 7370

In the News

The numbers are jolting.

Health officials say 58 children aged 3 months to 4 years old who were brought to Manila’s San Lazaro Hospital have died of measles so far this year.

With 169 cases from Jan. 1 to 19, nearly seven times the 26 recorded during the same period in 2018, the Department of Health (DOH) has declared a measles epidemic in the National Capital Region. The reason for the outbreak? The “low vaccine coverage because of the Dengvaxia scare.”

In November 2017, Sanofi Pasteur disclosed, belatedly, that people inoculated with its vaccine but who have had no prior exposure to the mosquito-borne virus were at risk of severe dengue. That, and reported deaths of children who received Dengvaxia shots, created widespread panic, exacerbated by the wanton political point-scoring that ensued.

In the News

The march toward greater transparency and accountability in government took a giant step backward with the recent insidious move by the House of Representatives to restrict public access to lawmakers’ statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs).

House Resolution No. 2467, authored by Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and adopted on second reading on Jan. 30, imposes next-to-impossible requirements before SALNs can be accessed.

For example, majority consent of the lawmakers will, for the first time, be required before the release of the SALNs.

The submission of SALNs by public officials — annually, and under oath — is required by both the 1987 Constitution and the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.

The SALN declares, among others, the business and financial interests of the public official, as well as those of the spouse and their unmarried children under 18 years old.

Press Statements

The utter absence of sufficient factual and constitutional basis for a third extension of martial law in Mindanao was scored in a 35-page memorandum filed by Rep. Edcel Lagman and six other opposition Representatives with the Supreme Court today, February 4, 2019 at 12:16 PM.

The petitioners in G.R. 243522 said that both President Duterte’s letter to the Congress dated December 6, 2018 initiating the extension and the military-police assessment reports failed to link violent incidents committed by local terrorist and communist groups to rebellion or furtherance of rebellion.

Press Statements

I am reiterating what I said last 21 August 2018 that House Resolution No. 1410 (now HR 2467) imposes for the first time stringent and repressive requirements for the public to access lawmakers SALNs.

What is so sacrosanct about the contents of a Representative’s SALN that the access to it by the public and media is made inordinately restrictive and tedious as contained in the proposed House Resolution No. 1410 on the Rules referring to, among others, access to SALNs of Members of the House?

In the News

Worse than jail cells, lacking even furniture.” That was how Juvenile Justice and Welfare Council (JJWC) executive director Tricia Oco described to the Senate justice and human rights committee the appalling state of some of the Bahay Pag-asa facilities mandated to rehabilitate children in conflict with the law (CICL).

More grim details: “Wala silang programs, wala silang beds. Wala silang cabinets. Ang mga bata doon, they are just told to keep quiet the whole day and not do anything. Others even resort to self-harm because they’re very bored.”