Hi-tech House session hall to stop absenteeism

By Delon Porcalla - PhilStar

Roll calls and voice votes might soon be a thing of the past as well as, hopefully, absenteeism among congressmen when the House of Representatives goes hi-tech next year.

Come end January, lawmakers may not need to stand up to be counted, but their physical presence is still required for them not to be marked absent once renovation of the session hall of the Batasan complex is completed.

Catanduanes Rep. Joseph Santiago, chairman of the House information communication technology (ICT) committee, said the state-of-the-art session hall will force all 240 congressmen to religiously attend sessions.

“You have to be physically present to press the button. It requires a thumbprint, which means fingerprints of other persons will not be recognized,” Santiago, former commissioner of the National Telecommunications Commission, told The STAR.

The renovation will take about a month and according to Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., this would cost them around P25 million to P30 million.

“The floor here will be elevated (by six inches) to lay down the wires. We will be hi-tech by next year,” De Venecia told The STAR in a separate interview.

Unlike in the present set-up where voluminous documents are stacked on top of each lawmaker’s table at the plenary hall, Santiago said the tables will soon be paperless and free of clutter by next year, with only four buttons on it.

“The buttons are ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘abstain’ and another one for fingerprint scanner. Mas malinis na tingnan,” he said.

What a congressman can do every session, he stressed, is to press the button once the session is called to order at 4 p.m.

Just like the electronic or biometric voting which should save the chamber a lot of time, Santiago revealed the House leadership can also get rid of the roll call, which almost always eats up an hour of legislative work.

So will viva voce (voice vote), which “will be a thing of the past,” he said. “I think that will no longer be needed.”

Lawmakers still have to be physically present though, because they have to press their vote button every time it is needed.

This will prevent legislators from roaming around or going to other places when the House is deliberating on a measure. “they can’t go far. They will be obliged to sit down. In the US, they can vote inside their office, but not here.”

However, the scheduled Jan. 21 resumption of session may be extended by another week due to time constraints, as construction work may not be finished in a month – from Dec. 21 to Jan. 21. “We may ask (the Senate) for an extension, maybe a week,” De Venecia said.

The Speaker said the Philippine parliament wants to be at par with their counterparts in “Europe, US and most of our Asian neighbors, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore,” among others.

De Venecia said the electronic voting “will save us much in terms of plenary discussion time because we can do away with the repetitious roll calls for attendance and conventional individual voting.”

Santiago also revealed that once the state-of-the-art equipment is placed, congressmen can browse pending bills online, and check committee reports or memos. “They can even file their bills electronically from their office.”

Each of the 240 congressmen will also be provided with a “brand new laptop” as part of the computer modernization and e-Legislation project, aimed at establishing the House as a major player and contributor to e-Governance programs in the public sector.

Eventually, Santiago said they will also be pushing for wireless Internet service (wi-fi) not just in the plenary hall, but also Congress-wide, which means in the entire 16-hectare Batasan complex.