The midnight voting to approve HR 1109 has been an acoustic victory. If future social scientists, legal scholars, and historians will later want to find from available journal or document as to who did, in fact, vote for HR 1109 to those who did not – no available material will tell. And it is so because, on purpose, voting came via viva voce. The stronger the sound appears to be ‘ayes’ than the ‘nayes’, the former will have it. But again, always as always, people will want to find out even question why a house resolution invested with overarching constitutional implication can just be voted upon by the mode we would here call – voice-say. At the very least, there must have been left a piece of scientific evidence that interested parties can revisit like maybe an electronic record from a sound radar, a sonar maybe, whatever – but is there?
The resulting responses to this viva voce would have been as to, one: why did it not proceed by nominal voting instead and two: how for the sake of posterity will people know who voted for HR 1109 against those who did not – since their voice ought to the voice of their respective constituency. In other words, it maybe likened to something of a ‘crime perfect’ – no one will be blamed since nothing is in evidence.
Now let’s shift quickly to yet another point. There were to have been at least three committee hearings held over 1109, the second being the time when constitutional experts Fr. Joaquin Bernas and former Associate Justice Vicente Mendoza of the Supreme Court Mendoza were in attendance as resource persons plus an official memorandum from yet another expert (a law dean, must be Dean Agabin?) read by Rep. Rufus Rodriguez although with some desistance from Chairman Victor Ortega who rather wanted the memo merely inserted into the record. It is these 1st and 2nd which I have witnessed but I would assume that even on the 3rd such hearing, it would have merely a continuation with no other new ‘positional edifice’ to have been constructed. Then came that evening affair in the nation’s history – 1109 won – at the dead of the night.
In gist, what are the points of agreement as well as disagreement discussed over 1109? First, the resource persons would rather that a constitutional convention be the mode opted to rather than just a constituent assembly. The mode via a people’s initiative was certainly not part of their equation. Fact is, Fr. Bernas deems as wiser a ConAss apparently gauging from what is in the air. For another, the committee tried to know if voting can be done with Congress in joint session which Rep. Datumanong had in fact discussed in length citing even those instances where joint meeting of HOR and Senate is held to take up martial law, SONA (State of the Nation Address), et cetera. Taking from these traditional proceedings, Datumanong thought it can extend as to apply even in matters pertaining to revising the Constitution. Still for Fr. Bernas, the infamous resolution should be treated just like any other bill where both HOR and Senate are voting separately.
In the 2nd committee hearing, Rep. Golez were to have raised a most important observation. Conversant with the Rules of Procedure of the House and the workings in the Committee on Rules, he did not fail to stressed that the whole proceeding following the time the resource persons have been excused are but – out of order – extending as it does beyond the 4 p.m. when all business should be taken up at the Plenary Session. But unfortunately, Committee Chairman Victor Ortega ruled that Golez’ observation cannot be well taken.
This gave rise to the very occasion when the Chairman tried to show a letter he sent to the Chairman, Committee on Rules asking that the committee goes on to deliberate on 1109 apparently signed and approved – beyond the designated 4 o’clock p.m. time. However, on document scrutiny, Golez was sure and firm that the same was not properly approved and signed by Chairman and much less by co-signatory Minority Floor Leader as consistent with the rules.
It also must be borne in mind that as far as the resource persons are concerned, 1109 should be voted upon by a vote of ¾ with HOR and Senate voting separately and not jointly. The rationale of this has always been overemphasized which is that it should not become a number’s game where obviously the administration legislators consist the majority of those who will vote for 1109.
Thus, rightly so, the Committee has just chosen to disregard if discard the wisdom of the ages. Neither Justice Mendoza nor Fr. Bernas became their patron saint. Now that the HB 1109 is approved, let us just begin to watch the next pecking order.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Dude,
You need to upload an image to your article so that your article does not produce a broken link on the Recent Posts section at the right-hand panel of the article pages. :D
The fundamental failing of all who signed onto this railroading was their willingness to undermine public trust when that trust is already so low. The constitution they hope to revise emphasizes public trust. Perhaps one of the changes they expect to make is to drop “public trust” as a mandate.
I was dismayed to see names on the list that I had thought were to be respected:
MAGSAYSAY
TEODORO
Joe
So is there a list on who shouted ayes by viva voce, joe?
List of signers of the bill was here on FV, now gone. Hmmmm . . . I wasn’t drunk, for sure. I don’t drink. Maybe my blood pressure meds kicked up too high. Maybe this is all a dream, a very very bad dream.
Wish I had tapes of the people shouting . . .
Damn, where is that list?
Joe
i think i have, you have it already?
in the first place, let me ask you a question, if ever these holy figures (jesus, bhudda, krishna etc..) did really exist, did even one of them tell people to make a religion in their names?? the religion Jewish, Christianity is a fraud, it is based upon astrological events (too long to explain, watch “ZEITGEIST” documentary on “WWW.SPRWORD.COM” and you balance it out yourself if you believe in it.) personified by thousands of years of imaginative thinking and was & is used by political agendas led by the Illuminati since ancient times.. The Illuminati, this group who calls themselves the enlightened ones, had gained positions of power through control of the banking system, Billions of people on planet earth are living in ignorance. Before your very eyes, politicians are advancing a global plan. Since the time of Napoleon, secret societies have been influencing politicians to take over and conquer Europe. Now, in the 21st century, their work of ages is coming to fruition. The New World Order is about the centralization of power. It’s about silencing any public criticism of the system. It’s about commercializing and selling everything as a product. It’s about letting China torture students and still allowing them to host the Olympics. It’s about closing down government owned schools and hospitals, turning them into apartments, and then letting private companies make profits from teaching your children or selling you drugs, just a bunch of masons of the highest degree who are devil worshipers and crazed for death, world domination and control. I’m not saying theres no God I’m a very spiritual man and I believe God is everywhere in nature just if all of us could see and hear him as I do,, but that would be hard in noisy and polluted cities, but that’s just me. I just don’t want to worship and kneel to a Jesus God or whatever, who has all the power in the world to do anything and creates a heaven where all the good people who follow him go to when they die but creates a hell! for those who disobey him where they will burn, suffer, be mutilated and rot for all eternity!!? but he loves you?? what a joke!! So there’s this God Christianities God who’s all powerful but somehow he can’t handle money,, and by Gods name he needs a lot of it!! hahaha.., forgive me people for laughing but if all that money of the church really did go to the poor the word “poor” will be no more. It’s not about money anymore people, control is what they want and they have done a pretty good job doing so in the past century, think about it, truth shall set you free as it has done for me.., ….it’s not important to name a God or even gods even knowing they exist around us in nature is enough, to have faith in a higher existence does not mean we have to make religions to commemorate them, expecting to be rewarded in the end is absurd for to live life is enough joy for for me, people just have to be content, throw away their vanities and open their hearts and minds most of all and their world system w/c is slowly poisoning us w/ immoral, destructive and demoralizing effects injected to us by means of media, movies, companies, entertainment, oprah, american idol, fashion, banking, world trade stocks, war, money system, music industries, vitamins, gmo foods, viruses, vaccines etc,..( all these they manipulate us into taking for ourselves by blind submission, thinking it’s all good for us but slowly stupidifying all of the world and most of all our children, you name it and they own it they truly do have control on all of the masses ) will crumble before the eyes of the world.., im new to this blog internet thing and i want to share my insights to our nation, I think it’s a good way to spread these secretly kept information from the people, I know i’m out of the topic here but there is no article to leave a comment on this.., hoping to read about the aspects of others.. hope that the topic writers make an article about this., all of these articles about politicians and movie stars seem very little to me,, hope is still with us until the earth is still green and alive we can still correct the wrong of mankind to our mother. change truly does starts from w/in and all the rest will follow we are not alone in this belief and change is starting, people are waking up, getting angry and their agendas are slowly unfolding,, plz watch the documentary online “ZEITGEIST” and balance out what’s true or not, it’s on http://WWW.SPRWORD.com.., hoping for others to reply..,
waitaminit!
fresh from the docpac’s boxing cheer-shopping trip, flipland’s bestest trapos did the most despicable, undemocratic thingy so far…
1st: the senatongs are/were preoccupied with persecution of money villar’s “double insertion” thingy. for weeks, the senatongs did nothing but cut each other’s throat. prez aspirants vs prez aspirants; the loudest crockpot, the better the sws standing.
2nd: at the same time, ate glo&magnanakaws’lakas-kampi joined forces and used their numbers to pass the pekeng resolution. ate glo’s usual travel companions/baggage stayed behind to make sure their number were counted.
3rd: the tongressmen made the senatongs, a non-entity.
4th: the trapos treated flipland’s constitution null and void.
5th: question: senatongs and tongresmen are flips’ “representative”, in this case, who are they representing?
i would not be surprised if the next step would be >>> supreme court’s supremo abugagos (all ate glo’s hacks) would spin the wheel of time until time itself spins out of control…
aysus ginoo… flipland, my beloved flipland…
Correct me if i am off course to say that there are three ways to propose a constitutional revision and/or amendment: They are ConAss, ConCon, and Peoples’ initiative – and the final arbitrary is a plebescite, which will be drawn twelve percent of the voters population.
Of all three, only Concon is prescribed by the constitutional experts. In effect, the only prescribed mode is via a Constitutional Convention.
Even a plebiscite can be ‘syndicated’, come to think of it.
Those modes are tools – like a scalpel.
Give the scalpel to a homicidal maniac – and people lose their lives.
Give the scalpel to a surgeon – and peoples lives are saved.
Thus, no matter which mode you take – if the mode/the tool is in the hands of homicidal maniacs – stock up on body bags :lol:
Oh well, it seems those constitutional experts you mentioned were not committed to comity – they have been syndicated against by HOR.
You can say that.
We can say then that the House of Representatives have initiative and the drive to deliver political issues detrimental to the constituency – i mean, they are at it as attested by their recent epic act.
Can a viva voce vote on an issue, where a number is required, withstand constitutional scrutiny? Re 1109, isn’t this angle justiciable?