Transfer of salience: From Malacañang to Congress

Sa lalong madaling panahon po, uupo na tayo sa LEDAC. - from President Benigno Aquino III's State of the Nation Address, July 26, 2010

It took seven months to hold that first meeting between Congress and Administration officials, which took place on Feb. 20, 2011. A second meeting was announced for March which never happened. It was re-scheduled for July 12, but was deferred. (BTW, the LEDAC Web site has not been udpated since 2009!)

Ask and you shall receive. Legislators filed bills on all the items Aquino asked for last year, including one each by former President Gloria Arroyo and her son Diosdado Arroyo. Except for the GOCC Governance Act, which became law last month, all the other bills are at the committee level. It is not possible to determine, as of this writing, whether the provisions of the bills match the intentions of Malacañang.

Executive Agenda	HB	Date Filed	Status
Procurement	105 429 697 949 1934 2872 3006 3022 4283	12/1/ 2010 12/1/ 2010 12/1/ 2010 12/1/ 2010 8/8/2010 12/1/ 2010 12/1/ 2010 12/1/ 2010 3/7/2011	Mother Committee ” ” ” Local Government Mother Committee ” ” Appropriations
Fiscal Responsibility	4067	1/31/2011: Urgent	RA10149 (GOCC Governance Act)	6/6/2011
Fiscal Incentives	4935 4152	9/15/2010 (GMA) 2/8/2011	Ways & Means	4935 5/10/2011 4935 2/15/2011
Land Use	414 478 722 829 1233 1348 1695 3533	7/27/2010 7/27/2010 7/28/2010 7/28/2010 (Dado) 8/2/2010 8/2/2010 8/2/2010 10/15/2010	Land Use ” ” ” ” ” ” ”
Anti-Trust	3534	10/15/2010	Trade & Industry	4835 5/18/2011
National Defense	865	7/28/2010	Nat. Def. & Security
Whistle-Blowers	1832 2110 2471 2675 2922	8/4/2010 8/10/2010 8/18/2010 8/25/2010 8/7/2010	Justice ” ” ” ”
Witness Protection	15 419 473 608 629 1979 2724	7/27/2010 7/27/2010 7/27/2010 7/27/2010 7/27/2010 8/9/2010 8/31/2010	Justice ” ” ” ” ” ”

Source: House of Representatives Web site

Noynoy's 2011 SONA

President Aquino will deliver his second State of the Nation Address before the Philippine Congress on July 25, Monday.

Points to consider:

• How accurate will his assessment of the state of the nation be?
• Will he ask for the appropriate legislation from Congress to address the country's needs?
  
• How is this legislative agenda prioritized?

The Official Gazette has an archive of all the State of the Nation Addresses going back to 1936 (Manuel Quezon). Read Aquino's July 26, 2010 SONA and his (June 30, 2011) speech on his first year as President.

15th Congress Right of Reply bills

House of Representatives

1. HB58. Karlo Nograles (Davao), July 27, 2010
2. HB117. Pedro Romualdo (Camiguin), July 27, 2010
3. HB4252. Rodolfo Antonino (Nueva Ecija), Feb. 21, 2011. (AN ACT IMPLEMENTING THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO INFORMATION ON MATTERS OF PUBLIC CONCERN GUARANTEED UNDER SECTION 28, ARTICLE II AND SECTION 7, ARTICLE III OF THE 1987 CONSTITUTION AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES.) Sections 10 and 16 are Right-of-Reply provisions, according to Johnny Mercado. Full text not available.

Senate

1. SB76. Manuel Villar, July 1, 2010

Mom's 80th

The tip of the iceberg: Mom and her children at the Camp John Hay Suites. We were a party of 30 that raided Baguio for her big Eight-O!

Thursday, May 5, 23:45. The first wave took the Victory Liner express coach. Arrived just before 05:00, Friday.

Friday, 05:00. Second wave: us, Mel's bunch. Arrived around lunch time. Checked in at the Suites. Lunch at Mile Hi Diner. Then, Richard and May, with Mommy. Finally, Jody's... 17:15 Mass at the Cathedral. Dinner at Cafe by the Ruins. (Get the story behind the name.) Drinks on the verandah at Anthony's room. Richard went out for more drinks -- and some ghost-hunting with some terrified wet-your-pants ghost hunters.

Saturday. Eco-trail. Very late KFC lunch on the JH picnic grounds. Anticipated Sunday mass at the Cathedral. Dinner at the Chocolate de Batirol. More drinks, this time on the balcony at Mom/Tito Vic's room.

Sunday. Last-minute shopping. Preparing for the Pacquiao fight. The bus riders left at noon. Richard, May and Mom much earlier. The rest at 13:45, after the ho-hum Vegas event in which the best Shame Mosley could do was push Pacman and have it count as a knockdown. Very foggy drive down Marcos Hway. Met by very, very strong rain on the NLEX; Mang Inasal chicken dinner ("unlimited rice") and Dairy Queen dessert at the Shell station in Santa Rita, Pampanga. Apparently, we didn't do our intel that well; Bebeng, a Signal 1 storm, was blowing over Luzon. Home just before 20:00.

More photos, courtesy of Monette and Lorenzo.

Manaoag stop

On the way to Baguio last Friday for Mom's 80th birthday celebration, we made an unscheduled, spur-of-the moment detour to Manaoag, Pangasinan.

Don Bosco's relic

This morning at the Mary Help of Christians shrine
Better Living, Paranaque












For the uninitiated, I received my early education at Don Bosco, including four years at the Juniorate (a religious formation house).