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Press Statements

The House leadership is arrogantly absolving itself of its sins of suppressing the right of free expression and debate in its unconscionable haste in passing the death penalty bill on second reading by accusing the oppositors of bullying the majority.

Since when has a small authentic minority oppressed the ascendant majority?

It is the majority leadership that dictates, albeit with unreasonable alacrity, the tempo of the proceedings; it is the House leadership which interprets the rules, albeit arbitrarily; and it is the House leadership that stifles dissent.

Emboldened by the pressured support of the supermajority, the House leadership had:

  1. Transgressed the rules and tradition of the House with impunity like including the time consumed by the answering sponsor to the one-hour limit allocated to an interpellator which greatly diminishes the latter’s time;

  2. Precipitately terminated the debates even as 18 more interpellators have been listed and announced; and

  3. Prematurely closed the period of individual amendments when only three pages of a seven-page text of the bill have been subjected to amendments, which is contrary to the rule that the amendment of the title of a bill is in order “only after amendments to the text thereof have been completed.”

The amendments proposed by the oppositors were legitimate and grounded on their advocacy against the reimposition of the death penalty.

The labeling by Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas that the amendments were “not honest-to-goodness” is unparliamentary because it imputes malicious motives to the oppositors.

The hallmark of a deliberative assembly of untrammelled free debate has been sacrificed to the gallows in the wake of the precipitate approval of H.B. No. 4727 on second reading.

 

EDCEL C. LAGMAN

Press Statements

The irony of the unconscionable railroading on second reading of the death penalty bill is that the very congressional leaders who insist that the death penalty is essential for people to stop breaking the law are the very ones who violate with impunity established rules and honored traditions of the House of Representatives.

The precipitate termination of the period of individual amendments, like the premature closure of the debates, has led to the mutation of the House into a parliament of bullies and puppets.

The arrogance of the House leaders in depriving the oppositors of the death penalty bill of their freedom of expression and right to debate is unprecedented in the history of the House.

The etymology of the word “parliament” is traced to the Old French word parler which means “to speak”. This is why a parliament or legislature is considered a deliberative assembly whose lifeblood is informative, instructive and critical debate.

The lack of will and courage of most members of the supermajority to defy the pressure and threats of the House leadership is reminiscent of the rubberstamp Batasan Pambansa during the martial law regime.

Members of the supermajority were hesitant to stand up and be counted on the issue of nominal voting.

The proceedings lacked transparency and accountability as most members of the supermajority voted on the cue of the majority leader and sought anonymity in the viva voce voting, even as the presiding officer was a mere pathetic adjunct of the House leadership.

At the instance of the House leadership in previous Congresses, nominal voting on second reading was held on major bills the most recent of which is the reproductive health measure.

 

EDCEL C. LAGMAN

Press Statements

The observance of Ash Wednesday must not be left unnoticed in the House of Representatives because this day signifies repentance and grief.

The House leadership must repent and grieve for the following transgressions in connection with the consideration of the death penalty bill:

  1. Prioritizing and railroading the death penalty bill that violates the sanctity and inviolability of life, which according to Pope Francis, even extends to the criminal.

  2. Insisting to pass the death penalty bill in violation of the Philippines’ treaty commitment not to reimpose the death penalty under the Second Optional Protocol to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights. International law jurisprudence and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties authoritatively declare that a country cannot use its domestic law and constitution to renege on or violate its treaty undertakings.

  3. Virtually feeding to the shredding machine the rules of the House which were deliberately and wantonly violated in the inordinate haste to fast-track the approval of House Bill No. 4727.

  4. Gagging and muzzling the oppositors of the death penalty bill by precipitately terminating the debates even as 18 more interpellators have been officially acknowledged.

  5. Moving for the consideration of an amendment by substitution without giving the oppositors the opportunity to know the reasons behind the package of proposed amendments and to interpellate their proponents.

  6. Introduction by the acting majority leader of a package of so-called collated individual amendments in complete disregard of the House rule and tradition of effecting individual amendments on a per page and per line basis.

  7. Amending the title of the bill without giving the Members the opportunity to file their respective individual amendments in violation of the rule that the amendment to the title shall be in order only after the amendments to the text have been completed pursuant to Section 105 of Rule XIII.

  8. Denial of the right of a Member to move for nominal voting under Section 116 of Rule XV.

 

 

EDCEL C. LAGMAN

Press Statements

The precipitate arrest of Sen. Leila de Lima is a stark contrast to the commemoration of the 31st anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution.

While the EDSA Revolution is a celebration of freedom and justice, the arrest of de Lima is an anthology of vengeance, fabrication and injustice.

The issuance by the Regional Trial Court of Muntinlupa City of the warrant of arrest against de Lima was grossly premature pending final resolution of de Lima’s motion to quash based on the court’s lack of jurisdiction, among others.

De Lima contends that the Ombudsman and Sandiganbayan have jurisdiction over the charges against her which were allegedly committed while she was a public officer as Secretary of the Department of Justice.

The jurisdictional issue challenges the competence of the trial court to assume jurisdiction over the crimes charged or the subject matter of the criminal action.

The trial court has first to resolve the issue of jurisdiction before issuing a warrant of arrest.

It is incorrect for the trial judge to claim that she could not resolve the motion to quash because her court has no jurisdiction over the person of de Lima pending her arrest.

The judge overlooked that there are two kinds of jurisdiction: (1) over the offense charged or the subject matter of the case; and (2) over the person of the accused.

At the time the motion to quash was filed, the requisite information had been filed, consequently, irrespective of whether or not the accused had been arrested, the court’s jurisdiction over the offense charged or the subject of the criminal action has been challenged, and perforce, the court must first resolve the issue of jurisdiction over the offense charged.

The court cannot proceed with further actions while the motion to quash is pending determination.

 

EDCEL C. LAGMAN

Press Release

Some 17 Representatives who were duly listed and announced by the Committee on Rules as interpellators on the death penalty bill have been rammed down in the wake of the House leadership’s railroading of House Bill No. 4727 seeking the reimposition of capital punishment.

The precipitate closure of the debates and the flawed approval of a substitute version containing wholesale Committee amendments were fast-tracked with inordinate haste last Wednesday night.

Timely objections from Rep. Edcel C. Lagman and Rep. Raul Daza of the authentic minority were voted down by inconclusive viva voce or “ayes” and “nays” votes.

Lagman emphasized that the hallmark of a deliberative assembly like the House of Representatives is the enduring tradition of untrammeled debates to extensively articulate differing views.

“The gagging or muzzling of legislators is anathema to a democratic institution”, Lagman added.

Lagman also said that the substitute bill which has been denominated as committee amendments by no less than the Committee on Justice, is improper and invalid because the said amendments were not approved by the Committee on Justice in a meeting called for that purpose.

In Daza’s point of order, he stressed that the invocation on Section 54 of Rule X of the House Rules to close the debates was improper because this rule pertains to the traditional turno en contra wherein speeches for and against a measure are made. Daza said that interpellations are not considered as speeches because the questions propounded may either be adversarial or friendly.

Whether the death penalty bill will be sent to the gallows or will be sanctified as an act of the House may be seen next week as the train of death accelerates its speed towards an ominous terminal.

 

EDCEL C. LAGMAN