Wednesday, July 25, 2007 Pablo set to form House ‘reform bloc’
CEBU Rep. Pablo “Pabling” Garcia (second district) will lead the formation of a “reform bloc” which will neither be with the majority nor minority in the Lower House.
His son, Rep. Pablo John Garcia (third district), said the group will guide members in decision-making, although they have yet to discuss on whether to sever ties with their various political parties.
“Personally, if my position would run counter to the position of Kampi, then Kampi can do with me whatever it wants,” said Pablo John.
“The speakership fight is never over. A speaker has no fixed term and a speaker has to work every single day to maintain his position. He serves at the pleasure of the body and if the body no longer derives pleasure from him and if reforms are not carried out, then the body might just decide to reconsider,” he added.
That, as Pabling yesterday denied on the floor that he withdrew from the race for speaker last Monday.
Saying that political parties in the Philippines have not really matured to a level such as in other countries, the reform bloc or “conscience bloc” will be formed to serve as a vehicle for them to push for their proposed reforms, said Pablo John.
“After the speakership fight, there are still reforms. We have to find another forum to push for reforms. Had we been successful yesterday, it would have been easier to institute these reforms but since things happened the way they did, we will push for a multi-party forum,” said Pablo John.
Reps. Luis Villafuerte (Camarines Sur), Martin Romualdez (Leyte) and Danilo Suarez (Quezon) were among the 40 congressmen who expressed intention of joining the reform group.
However, Pablo John said they are not in a hurry to grow big and fast.
“If we go by traditional route, we might suffer another Cuenco who manifested support for reforms and for Garcia but ended up nominating the rival. We don’t want to suffer the same shock we witnessed yesterday. It’s like opening your refrigerator and a cat jumped out of it,” said Pablo John, referring to Rep. Antonio Cuenco’s (Cebu City south) nomination of Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr.
Proposals that they intend to initiate include “transparency” on the budget of the House of Representatives to know how these are being spent, equality among members whether majority or minority, the equal distribution of rights and privileges that are “denied” to some just because they have other affiliations and better staffing for congressmen to “enable them to have research capabilities so they can participate intelligently” on bill deliberations.
Moreover, they will also propose disincentives such as penalties for absenteeism among members.
Pabling, speaking for the first time on the floor yesterday, told his colleagues that it’s not true he withdrew from the race.
He said the nomination was immediately closed after De Venecia’s and voting started. It was true that Villafuerte approached him to ask if Villafuerte will nominate him and he said no, but Garcia said it was only because the roll call vote already started.
“I did not want to be subjected to any more embarrassment. That’s the plain and simple truth… We were not given a chance to enter the contest…,” Garcia said on the floor.
Today, Garcia’s group will manifest and move to correct the journals because of some errors, such as the fact that it reflected Rep. Nerissa Soon-Ruiz as having voted for De Venecia.
