Can Filipinos afford more congressmen?

The country isn’t in good shape. The Philippines is P13.52 trillion in debt. And Congress is about to create more financial burdens. Creating new congressional districts means more public funds to pay for salaries, perks, and privileges of non-performing trapos. Creating more Cabinet departments means exacerbating budget deficits and complicating bureaucratic duplications of functions. Then trapos attend too many world conferences irrelevant and immaterial to our national interests.

There’s a bill filed by my friend Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez. He is a good man and seasoned parliamentarian. He was my dean in San Sebastian College of Law, when I taught there. I have always applauded his legislative achievements, but this bill will end up creating more congressional districts and add tremendous burden to the already overtaxed, underserved, and impatient Filipinos.

By this year, the national debt is going to balloon to P14.63 trillion. Our ratio of government debt to GDP is 60.40%. We are facing the worst inflation rate in history. Our balance of payment is negative $11.2 billion in 2022 and our current account as of 2022 is negative $20.5 billion, which is negative 5.1% of GDP. We have a huge budget deficit. The central bank is forecasting a wider shortfall in the country's balance of payments. Now, are we going to create another group of non-performing congressmen? Every member of Congress costs hundreds of millions to taxpayers.

House Bill 6651 calls for the "reapportionment" of the Philippines' current 253 legislative districts based on the results of the national census. While we concede the bill is based on the Constitutional provisions, Article VI, Section 5, this move isn’t timely. The Constitution has many provisions that call for legislative action for the enactment of enabling laws. But Congress hasn’t acted on them since 1987. Increasing the House members shouldn’t take precedence over more urgent legislative measures. The bill is projected to create not less than 20 additional seats. These aren’t going to improve the quality of legislative output.

Article XIII Section provides that Congress "shall give highest priority to the enactment of measures that protect and enhance the right of all the people to human dignity, reduce social, economic and political inequalities, and remove cultural inequities by equitably diffusing wealth and political power for the common good". Why doesn't Congress focus on this constitutional mandate that commands highest priority to social justice measures? For instance, the anti-political dynasty bill, more legislative support to rural and urban land reform. The Rodriguez bill is a political measure. The people don’t need this. What we need are more economic and social measures. Adding more congressmen will exacerbate our financial problems.

Not all members of Congress are as able and active as Rodriguez. Many aren’t even active in committee hearings and plenary sessions or haven’t even passed any legislation. When proceedings were done online many House members merely opened their gadgets for the roll call but didn’t actively participate. A poor country with too much debt doesn’t need a huge legislative body. What we need is effective implementation of laws, not more laws.

I have highest respect for Rodriguez. He’s a very good leader and should even be in the Senate by now. He’s definitely more qualified than many showbiz senators, siblings, mothers and sons, and half-siblings in the Senate. But House Bill 6651 has wrong timing. It may be a good idea whose time hasn’t come. The House should defer its consideration. Congressmen should focus on how to pay our debts, increase our GDP, and improve our balance of payments.

Congress should focus on first things first. By the way, what’s the stand of the Congress from Cebu plus some partylist representatives from the province? Most of them had been silent for months. Their silence is becoming thunderous. May we hear from them? What does Deputy Speaker Duke Frasco have to report? The people pause for a reply.