Cebuano lawmakers’ performance in 14th Congress

REPRESENTATIVE (Cebu City, north district) Raul del Mar authored 55 bills, making him the lawmaker with the most number of authored bills among his Cebuano colleagues in the House of Representatives.

On contrary, Representative (Cebu, 3rd district) Pablo John “PJ” Garcia has the least number of authored bills at six.

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All eight Cebuano lawmakers principally authored a total of 252 bills during the entire run of the 14th Congress from July 23, 2007 to February 3, 2010.

But only 10 bills were signed into law by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo while 34 are still awaiting action by the Senate and 85 are pending report or action by the different committees of the House of Representatives, according to data Office of the Secretary-General.

The rest of the bills, 121 of them, were substituted by other bills before they were discussed in the committee level.

Next to del Mar in the ranking was Representative (Cebu, 1st district) Eduardo Gullas with 46 authored House bills.

Representative (Cebu, 2nd district) Pablo Garcia settled at third place with 41 bills followed by Representative (Cebu, 4th district) Benhur Salimbangon with 37; Representative (Cebu, 6th District) Nerissa Soon-Ruiz, 28; Representative (Cebu City, south district) Antonio Cuenco, 27; and Representative (Cebu, 5th District) Red Durano with 12.

Del Mar also tops the number of bills that have been signed into Republic Acts at four.

Two of those are RA 09646, which regulates the real estate service in the Philippines and RA 09744 that converted the Cebu State College of Science and Technology System and all its satellite campuses into the Cebu University of Science and Technology.

Both Cuenco and Soon-Ruiz were able to produce two RAs while Gullas and Garcia each produced one.

Cuenco was able to create an additional barangay in Cebu City now known as Barangay Banawa-Englis with RA 09905 while Soon-Ruiz made Lapu-Lapu City a lone legislative district, separating it from the 6th district of Cebu.

Gullas, on the other hand, declared January 12, the "Charter Day of the City of Talisay," as a special non-working holiday with RA 09778 while Garcia allowed the establishment of Argao National High School with RA 09924.

Notable bills

The act creating an additional district in Cebu - HB 05761, principally authored by Pablo Garcia and co-authored by his son Pablo John, Gullas, and Salimbangon - was approved by the House on February 2009 but was not acted upon by the Senate.

Five of Gullas's authored bills have been transmitted to the Senate but was not acted upon until the adjournment.

Being an educator himself, a number of the bills were on education such as HB 04546, which aims to establish a national high school in San Fernando, HB 04565 to construct a high school in Minglanilla, and HB 04981 to provide the regionalization of the education department's payroll services.

Gullas also authored four House Resolutions and co-authored 87 bills.

Among del Mar's authored bills, two out of the five pending in the Senate are both concerned with the welfare of journalists. House Bill 00430 exempts media outfits to reveal the source of their news obtained in confidence while House Bill 00431 seeks a venue for lawsuits against journalists.

Del Mar co-authored 203 bills and filed 4 House Resolutions.

Salimbangon, for his part, has 10 authored bills pending in the Senate. He co-authored 67 bills.

Two of the most notable are HB 02215, which aims to make Malapascua Island as an eco-tourism destination while HB 05291 aims to approve a franchise to construct a greyhound racetrack in Mandaue.

To recall, the Supreme Court (SC) recently declared former Bogo mayor Celestino “Tining” Martinez as the rightful winner of the 2007 congressional race in Cebu’s 4th district.

But Martinez failed to take his oath before the session ended last February 3.

Meanwhile, the Senate passed without amendments Durano's two bills - HB 05722, which establishes a national high school in Pilar and another high school in Danao under HB 05726.

Durano co-authored 50 bills while Soon-Ruiz co-authored 75 and Cuenco, 72.

Cuenco is the principal author of House Concurrent Resolution 0007, which calls for the controversial constitutional convention.

Pablo Garcia, for his part, gave out the 14 privilege speeches during the entire run of the 14th Congress.

His most notable is his privilege speech on the poll automation, wherein he expressed doubts on its success and proposed manual counting and automatic transmission.

He co-authored 81 bills while Pablo John, though authoring only six, was able to co-author 62 bills.

Pablo John's HB 02310 aims to amend the charter of the Mactan, Cebu International Airport Authority, which only reached the committee level while HB 03791 aims to amend the Local Government Code of 1991 and has been transmitted to the Senate. (Angela Casauay)