By Lira Dalangin-Fernandez
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 15:32:00 09/20/2010
- Office of Minority Leader Edcel C. Lagman
- 0918-9120137 / 0916-6406737
- 18 September 2010
A total of P6.750 billion in five years can be sourced from the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) of Members of the House of Representatives alone to boost the country’s chances of achieving by 2015 Millennium Development Goal No. 5 on improving maternal health and reducing maternal mortality.
House Minority Leader Edcel C. Lagman proposed to earmark and utilize annually at least P5-million from the PDAF of each Member of the House of Representatives or a total of P1.350-billion yearly for related programs and activities to help achieve MDG 5 in their respective districts and constituencies.
Lagman lamented that “among all the eight MDGs, the least likely to be achieved is Goal No. 5.” He underscored that worldwide, the least progress has been in the area of reducing maternal mortality and improving maternal health.
“This mirrors the low status accorded to women in most societies because the goal that specifically protects and promotes their health and wellbeing is the one where the commitment of majority of the signatory-countries is at best, faltering and at worst, feeble and half-hearted,” Lagman said in a speech before participants to the WomenDeliver Conference.
The Albay solon emphasized that allocating funds through the PDAF for basic and emergency obstetric care and information campaign to avoid high-risk pregnancies will lower maternal mortality and morbidity.
“If we collectively adopt and implement this proposal starting 2011, we shall be able to harness P1.350 billion annually or P6.750 billion in five years in the House of Representatives alone,” Lagman said. The deadline for achieving the MDGs is 2015.
Lagman added that “the enactment of a rights-based, development-oriented and health-driven law on reproductive health that is well-funded and national in scope will help ensure that the miracle of life will not mean death for so many mothers.”
In the Philippines, 11 women die daily of causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. The country’s current maternal mortality ratio (MMR) is pegged at a high of 162 deaths for every 100,000 live births while the MDG target is an MMR of 52 by 2015.
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Lagman seeks P6.7 billion for maternal health
By Jess Diaz (The Philippine Star) Updated September 19, 2010 12:00 AM
Link: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=613298&publicationSubCategoryId=63
Lagman urges use of lawmakers’ ‘pork’ to cut maternal deaths
Saturday, 18 September 2010 19:24
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- Press Statements
15 August 2010
0918-9120137 / 0916-6406737
Whether legislators are for or against the impeachment of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, the compelling response is to accord bipartisan courtesy to the status quo ante order of the Supreme Court.
A constitutional crisis will only ensue if the leadership of the House Committee on Justice will be bullheaded in defying the order of the High Court.
The power of the House to impeach is not absolute because it is subject to the constitutional power of the Supreme Court to exercise judicial review over acts of the Congress which transgress the Constitution and smack of grave abuse of discretion.
Members of the Congress should exercise caution and restraint in assailing the Supreme Court as an “Arroyo Court” because justices are beholden only to the tenets of justice and the rule of law.
It must be recalled that in many instances the Supreme Court has ruled against the Arroyo administration and even struck down as unconstitutional executive issuances and undertakings of the immediate past administration.
- Press Statements
15 August 2010
0918-9120137 / 0916-6406737
President Benigno Aquino III should consider submitting to the Congress a supplemental National Expenditure Program (NEP) to provide additional budgets to inadequate and inexistent allocations for government agencies and mandated expenditures.
The on-going review by the Committee on Appropriations of the President’s budget proposal for 2011 has revealed significant budgetary lapses like the following, among others:
1. The budget of the Department of Foreign Affairs which was cut by almost 40% including the legal support for OFWs which was slashed from P100-M to P27-M in violation of the newly amended Migrant Workers Act.
2. The allocations for the Supreme Court and the Judiciary which were reduced by nearly 50% from the original submission.
3. The zero allocation for capital outlay for State Universities and Colleges.
4. The zero allocation for barangay and sitio electrification in the budget of National Electrification Administration.
5. The inadequate funding support services to agrarian reform beneficiaries in violation of RA No. 9700 or the extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law on land acquisition and distribution with more reforms.
Since the Constitution prohibits the Congress from increasing the totality of the President’s budget submission of P1.6 billion, the possible solution is for the President to increase the expenditure ceiling through a supplemental NEP.
This may require the Executive to increase the projected deficit which is not sacrosanct and/or look for additional revenues and sources of financing which should be flexible and not cast in stone.
- Press Statements
- Office of Minority Leader Edcel C. Lagman
- 0918-9120137/0916-6406737
- 12 September 2010
Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda is blinded by an obstinate desire for propaganda when he said that those who have committed no wrong should not be afraid of the Truth Commission.
Lacierda refuses to understand that the challenge against the commission is not because of fear but is motivated by the duty to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law.
Neither is the commission being questioned to block the investigation and prosecution of officials of the Arroyo administration who can be brought before existing investigatory and prosecutorial agencies like the Department of Justice and the Ombudsman without inventing the Truth Commission.
Whether the commission is a toothless tiger for want of subpoena and coercive powers or a ferocious lion for having been granted quasi-judicial authority, it must be struck down for being a constitutional aberration.
The following are the constitutional infirmities of Executive Order No. 1 which created the Truth Commission:
1. It violates the principle of separation of powers between the Executive and the Legislative for arrogating the exclusive powers of the Congress to create a public office and fund its operation.
The only power granted to the President under the Administrative Code of 1987 is to reorganize the Office of the President in order to achieve simplicity, efficiency and economy, but not to create a new office which was hitherto inexistent like the Truth Commission.
2. It violates the equal protection clause enshrined in the Constitution because it selectively targets reportedly errant officials of the Arroyo administration but exempts those of other regimes from the jurisdiction of the commission.
Equal protection demands that those similarly situated, like all alleged perpetrators of graft, must be exposed to the same rigors and perils irrespective of personalities and eras.
3. It supplants the quasi-judicial powers of the Office of the Ombudsman which was created under the 1987 Constitution and strengthened by the Ombudsman Act of 1989.
Executive Order No. 1 can neither amend the Constitution nor a statute.
While the minority bloc in the House of Representatives has undertaken to cooperate with the Aquino administration, it cannot lend cooperation to a partisan enterprise which desecrates the Constitution.
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