No to emergency powers for GMA, say Revilla, Villar

Two senators warned Thursday that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has no need for emergency powers in the face of the drought hitting the Philippines.

Government departments and agencies must first get their acts together before even contemplating on asking for such authority from Congress Senator Ramon Bong Revilla Jr. said.

"Are we for instance now getting the signal that the drought situation will impact more on energy rather than agriculture?" asked Revilla.

Revilla instead batted for the creation of a "Task Force Tubig" that will get the entire government machinery "speak with one voice and take swift and decisive actions to stem the crisis."

During the first El Nino crisis in 1997, then President Fidel Ramos created as similar task force which was reactivated by President Macapagal Arroyo in 2001.

For his part, Revilla said he intends to sponsor the creation of a larger and more powerful agency on water resources as recommended by the Ramos task force.

"We need a full-time body to deal only with the issue of water," Revilla said.

During the 10th Congress, the elder Senator Ramon Revilla Sr. almost succeeded in having passed a law creating the Water Resources Authority of the Philippines (WRAP) as the overall regulatory body for water resources development and management.

"Despite being normally abundant in rains, we have an endemic water crisis in many parts of the country," the senator clarified.

Meanwhile, , Senate President Manny Villar stressed that what the government needs is "emergency funding" and not emergency powers for President Arroyo so it can mitigate the dry spell which has parched farmlands and threatened rice production.

Instead of asking Congress for extraordinary powers to hasten the purchase of goods needed to mitigate the effects of dry spell, Malacanang should instead augment funding for programs that would dull the impact of El Nino on agriculture and water supply in general, Villar said.

"Aside from the Contingent Fund, the biggest source for the anti-drought initiative is the AFMA (Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act), with a P20-billion funding in the 2007 national budget.

Villar also inquired on the status of the P7-billion allocation for "irrigation services" for 2007, at least P1 billion of which was announced to have been released by Malacañang before the May 2007 elections.

"The money is there. The President has residual powers to realign funds in the national budget under her disposal to projects that would address the water crisis. The problem is that there seems a drought on funds," he said.

"After all, as the President said in her SONA, she can be as strong as she wants to be. So maybe she can practice what she preaches this time," he said.

As to Malacanang's claim that emergency powers are needed so it can undertake emergency purchases, Villar replied that "existing procurement laws allow any agency to speed up procurement of goods during a calamity or emergency situation."

"If the emergency power proposed is a license to do emergency shopping, I think the latter can be done, within existing laws and without having to ask permission from Congress," Villar said.

"It's better to use the existing framework of laws because my fear is that if we give the Palace extraordinary powers, this might be abused the way the emergency powers granted to the executive during the power crisis of the '90s was," Villar said.

"We may end up having the El Nino version of the IPPs," Villar said, referring to what ended up as costly power plants.