Congressional committees and reforms

Title

Creator

Manila Daily Bulletin

Language

English

Year

1969

Subject

Legislative reform.

Philippines. Congress. House of Representatives

Philippine legislators -- Power and duty.

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES AND REFORMS Regarding the legislative reforms, a distinction must be made between formal and substantive reforms. A reform that cuts down the number o£ House com mittees is, by itself, a pKOGedural matter that premises no improvement in the qua lity of legislation. But even if it is merely a formal type of innovation,, it is likely to result in grumbling among Congressmen and in econo my. We will explain. The pre'liferation of committees in the House, which number 43, was basically due to patre nage. House leaderships in the past increased the number of committees due to the great number of Con gressmen desiring to be com mittee chairmen. And why did they want to head the committees? Purely because they wanted more power. The chairman of a commit tee decides whether the bill should be given a chance to pass the chamber. If he refuses to report out the bill, that is the end. Somehow a committee however unimpo’tant will hold the power of life and death over some bills, and that is additional power for the Congressman. The reduction of the num ber of committees from 43 to 19 may well earn for Spea ker LaureL rhe ire of dis placed committee chairmen. We do not know how he will placate them, if the re duction of the- number of committees is not a quid pro quo arrangement. The fact remains that the Speaker’s move, if it pros pers, will mean a saving for the House because it will entail thei reduction of per sonnel assigned to the com mittees. It will also mean a consolidation of some po wers, and this, perhaps, will mean a saving in time and effoit on the part of the peoMabch 1969 27 pie who would be interested in the passage oi some mea sures in the House. Thus, it can be seen how a mere procedural reform in the House can involve some courage on the part of the House leadership. It will take a lot more courage and firmness on the part of the same leadership to move from mere formal reforms to substantive chan ges. How does one, for exam ple, go about controlling the output of nonsense of the chamber? Can one actually control the proliferation of appropriation laws that do not have the ghost of a chance of implementation due to lack of money but are passed just the same to show some constituents that their representative has done something in their behalf but which nevertheless con stitute deceit played on the gullible people? How can one go about implementing the broad po licy of selfless service on be half of the people in the field of legislation when ma ny members of the chamber cannot think in terms of the national good because they cannot correlate individual power with national welfare? If the general character of the membership runs in op position to the broad policies of reform that the Speaker has in mind, then implemen tation of the reforms will primarily involve control. One will control House ex penditures, House behavior, and the output of the House. In this connection, there is no room for .pessimism, al though there is plenty of grounds therefor. If the House leadership initiates re forms of whatever type, he ought to be supported in his effort, because it is the critics themselves that have been blaming the House for a lot of ills that the coun try suffers. If the reforms run against the grain of the membership that ought to be castigated for nursing out dated ideas of power and politics. If the immediate future does not provide a fertile ground for Congres sional reforms, the pertinent ideas must be encouraged just the same. Still Speaker Laurel must also give sufficient assurances to the people who ought to encourage his measures by 28 Panorama leaving no room for them to doubt his sincerity. This in fact is the crux of lea dership. Critics are human. They will not see any point in heaping encomiums and encouragements to leaders who say one thing but do another. They would like tc see a display of raw courage by the leader who can stick to his world. Since the Speaker comes from Batangas he just may have that cour age. — Manila Daily Bulle tin. EDUCATION AND OPPORTUNITY . . . (Continued from, page 1) of knowledge has not necessarily relation to wisdom. After all, the best the college can do is to give the students breadth of knowledge, not necessarily depth of knowledge. Personally I have not been in sympathy with the view that because there are already so many well-trained men, something must be done to prevent younger men from entering our professional schools. It certainly is a sad commentary on our times if we introduce unnecessary obstructions and obstacles to prevent students from enter ing the professions or to trap unwary students, so that they may be prevented from continuing their studies after their course is started, unless such procedures result in turning out better men and are not merely evidence of an unconscious trade-union state of mind which tends to make a profession an aristocracy. Let us not get the idea that there are too many doc tors, too many lawyers, architects, engineers, nurses, gro cers, coal-miners, and what not As a matter of fact, it would appear that there are too many of all of us, yet that assumption of itself refutes the argument that we must reduce the number in each class. It is almost a paradox that when we have too much of everything col lectively, we worry most because we have too little indi vidually. — By William J. Mayo, M.D. in Vital Speeches of the Day. March 1969

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