Friday, March 07, 2008 Editorial: An issue in democratic governance
DESPITE President Arroyo’s abolition of Executive Order 464, the issue of “execu tive privilege” still remains.
It comes as a matter of government or corporate internal practice that ensures not just compliance of organizational policies but also adherence to office discipline.
At the moment, the issue comes into a political circumstance affecting the executive and legislative branches.
The two branches were on collision course a number of times before, usually due to the Senate’s exercise of its oversight powers over the executive branch.
As a matter of defense, the executive branch took protective cover under the management notion of “executive privilege,” where the head of agency/office exercises the privilege of refusing or acquiescing to proposed solutions of problems involving another agency or organization with similar or co-equal function.
Tug-of-war
Thus, we have the executive and legislative branches always in a tug-of-war over political issues with the third branch, the judicial, acting, by force of circumstance, as referee.
In recent years, the executive branch strengthened its position over executive privilege through the issuance of Executive Order 464.
While the legislative branch has interposed strong objections over the EO, the same did not come to a head until the national broadband network (NBN) contract with China’s ZTE corporation surfaced.
The contract price of $329 million is believed to be disastrously overpriced.
Since the case indicates involvement of the First Couple, the Senate is moving for the “kill.”
Coverage
Our Constitution, however, has both the executive and legislative branches well-covered.
While the powers and functions of the three co-equal branches of government are well defined, the Senate oversight powers and the President’s executive privilege claim now sound rather broad enough as to need specificity in its application as to scope and limits.
Thus, the imbroglio over the NBN-ZTE hearings has brought the Senate’s right to undertake probes on executive performance on a collision course with the notion of executive privilege.
That the executive branch blinked, with the President abolishing EO 464, does not mean however that the conflict has been resolved.
