Speaker hires 4 media handlers to improve House image

Speaker Prospero Nograles announced yesterday he has hired four media handlers to improve the image of the House of Representatives.

“I don’t believe anyone has a monopoly of wisdom. I am a team player and I believe that four heads are better than one,” he said in a statement.

He named his four media handlers as former journalist Gil Bugaoisan, who has been handling his media relations since 2001; Reggie Velasco, a long-time PR practitioner; Ed Malay, another PR practitioner and spokesman of former President Fidel Ramos; and Bong Serrano, described also as a PR practitioner and a political officer of the ruling Lakas-CMD party.

Velasco is also secretary-general of Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi), which was a major player in the ouster of Pangasinan Rep. Jose de Venecia Jr. as Speaker.

Velasco is not new in the House. He is a co-worker of Francis Ver, his Kampi deputy, whom Rep. Crispin Beltran had accused last September of offering him at least P2 million in cash and projects in exchange for endorsing the impeachment complaint filed by lawyer Roel Pulido against President Arroyo.

Ver had denied the accusation.

Nograles’ four image handlers replaced former journalist Noel Albano, who headed the House public relations and information department under De Venecia.

Nograles said he was impressed by the various image-building proposals they submitted.

“With them working for my team, I am confident we will achieve a great degree of success in our image-building campaign for the House of Representatives. I should expect positive results in my first 100 days as Speaker,” he said.

He did not say how much he is paying his image builders, but sources said the four would be getting no lower than P50,000 a month, for a total of at least P200,000 for the four of them.

He said one of the tasks of his “image management team” is to paint a better image for the congressional pork barrel system, which dispenses at least P70 million a year for each congressman, or a total of nearly P17 billion for all 238 House members.

“The pork barrel is highly misunderstood. Only a few people know that this has been providing scholarships, building classrooms, post-harvest facilities, bridges, highways, hospitals, and schools in many parts of the country,” Nograles said.

House goes hi-tech

Absentee lawmakers will no longer have excuses for poor performance once the House of Representatives implements the internal reforms – including electronic voting – most of the congressmen want in their efforts to redeem the chamber’s sagging image.

The new Speaker said that like the Senate, there will also be live television coverage in the lower house that will provide the public with the “blow-by-blow account of the plenary proceedings” and “discourage absenteeism and tardiness among congressmen.”

 “We want the House of Representatives to become the House of the People. We want to give the public a better understanding of what’s going on in the House of Representatives,” Nograles, who vowed transparency as his policy, said.

As part of its reforms, the Speaker said they will also try to make the House “accessible to the public by organizing a weekly public tour for students, local government officials, barangay officials, and even local and foreign tourists.”

A brochure explaining how the legislative mill works and a map of the Batasan complex will also be provided to visitors, he said.

The House is also building its own website that will contain details of the lawmakers’ priority development assistance funds (PDAF), popularly known as pork barrel funds, and provide a tracking mechanism on the status of their PDAF-funded projects.

Nograles said the schedules of committee hearings for bills would also be published in nationally-circulated dailies to allow more public participation in deliberations and ensure high-quality legislation.           – With Delon Porcalla