Unlike the other legislative chamber, the House of Representatives has been quick to discipline its members over various infractions.
On Tuesday night, as the Senate was paralyzed by the refusal of the majority bloc to work, the House voted overwhelmingly – 265 with only 14 against and eight abstentions – to expel Francisco “Kiko” Barzaga as representative of the 4th district of Cavite.
The reasons: disruptive and disorderly behavior, conduct unbecoming of a member and violations of the House Code of Conduct, committed within the session hall and through his social media posts. The expulsion followed two separate 60-day suspensions meted by the House on Barzaga, a 27-year-old member of the Barzaga political clan, who likes punctuating his sentences with “meow meow.”
In the previous Congress, the House also expelled Arnolfo Teves Jr. as representative of the 3rd district of Negros Oriental, amid his prolonged absence to evade arrest for the 2023 massacre of 10 people in the province led by his clan’s political rival, governor Roel Degamo.
At the Senate, Ronald dela Rosa has been absent for half a year, with full pay for himself and his 10 relatives in his office. The only work he has rendered so far is to pop up to help install Alan Peter Cayetano as Senate chief, and then to vanish again with the help of his colleagues.
Yet even under the previous leadership, the chamber could not agree on any sanctions against Dela Rosa for chronic absenteeism and the waste of millions of pesos in public funds on a non-operational Senate office.
Disciplinary powers of both chambers don’t extend to criminal activities. Those in charge of the pillars of the criminal justice system should match the decisiveness of the House in imposing discipline on its members by speeding up the investigation and prosecution of lawmakers implicated in flood control anomalies, and who had a hand in institutionalizing thievery in the national budget.
House members who are genuinely concerned about good governance should do their part by undoing the processes or rules that allowed the systemic thievery to take place.
They can also support long-standing proposals for a viable system of regulating campaign financing, which has become one of the biggest instruments for money laundering and large-scale corruption. Only criminal-minded politicians will not want legislation that will dramatically reduce the cost of campaigning for elective office.
Beyond disciplining its members, the House can pursue long-term reforms that will promote fiscal discipline, accountability and good governance.