Work half undone
Posted on June 9, 2006 - Filed Under Punch Forum |
Rafael Oriel
orielamy@yahoo.com
9 June 2006
House Speaker Joe De Venecia announced that as of June 8, the House of Representatives passed a total of 814 bills, 802 of which have remained pending in the Senate. This is a clear indication that the bottle-neck or hindrance of legislative progress or production in Congress is the Senate. The dismal performance is the result of endless investigations and ceaseless political maneuverings. Regardless of who are to blame, this means that Congress were able to enact only 12 bills or 1.5% into law while 98.5% is left undone.I once heard somebody said, “Work half done is work half undone.”
Borrowing this quote, we can say that job 1.5% done by Congress is 98.5% job undone.
To solve this alarming problem of depressingly low efficiency and costly legislation is to go for the unicameral parliamentary system of government so that there will be no bottle-neck or hindrance of legislative progress or production because legislators who represent the people in the national assembly will all be working together as Members of the Parliament (MLA). This means that there will be no more separate and independent congressmen and senators blaming each other why 98.5% of the proposed bills are left not done.
Another beauty of a unicameral parliamentary system in addition to the savings that will be realized due to the abolition of the senate is the opportunity of the public to see their representatives painstakingly debating in the parliament important issues affecting the country. It should have been nice to know their wisdom in the speedy approval of the lesser urgent proposed measure abolishing the death penalty while not passing 2006 national budget and other bills certified as urgent including those on biofuels, anti-terror, and tax reforms.
Just an opinion. Something for the Filipino electorates and taxpayers to ponder.
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