Is Marcoleta’s motion lost?

“The motion is lost,” so declared the presiding chair, Rep. Stella Quimbo, after the House was divided over Rep. Rodante Marcoleta’s motion to terminate the deliberations on the Office of the Vice President’s 2025 proposed budget. As the tyranny of numbers took its toll, those who were in favor of Marcoleta’s motion were overrun by those against it.

We witnessed a scene where a sympathetic congressman argued Marcoleta’s case to the effect that the chair must have erred in moving to divide the House without Marcoleta’s motion having been substantively answered rather than conveniently railroaded.

Also coming to Marcoleta’s rescue, another veteran legislator raised the more important point that however the chair decided on the motion, the ruling would become a committee precedent, as well as of the entire House, therefore the same should be rendered with prudence as it concerned a higher office deserving of deference and respect.

Truly, Marcoleta should have been right in arguing in straight-forward terms that it may not be within the authority of a mere committee to discard an otherwise “well-kept tradition.” In short, Marcoleta’s motion was not properly disposed of by a mere automatic move to divide the House to see how the members would vote, for or against.

It evolved as a paradigm shift how committee hearings are conducted in Congress as it was at the Senate where lady chairs are unmistakably behaving in a highly autocratic way, thereby “disconfiguring” the spirit that should characterize Congress as the bulwark of democracy. If at the parliamentary level House committee chairpersons are simply bound by instructions from the Speaker, then its independence — in whole and in part — is also under siege.

The question now emerges whether Congress can respect the Office of the Vice President in line with well-kept tradition. Since the ruling of the chair forms part of legislative precedent, the danger hence lurks around the bend, if deliberations run off the track, something that can be avoided by faithful respect of tradition accorded the OVP.

VP Sara Duterte being ridiculed, even called a “bratinella” or spoiled brat, was for Marcoleta a disrespect of the Office that she represents. Marcoleta even went on to say, viz.: “You may not like the person, you may not like her presence here but you have to respect the Office of the Vice President.”

Citing his 17th year as congressman, Marcoleta strongly expressed dismay over the barrage of questions raised as an act of gross disrespect for VP Sara.

The inability of the chair to foreground a strong argument counter-intuitive to Marcoleta’s points except by resorting to a “dangerous legislative maneuver” by quickly abandoning or dismissing the crucial issue raised by Marcoleta only reflects the apparent lack of agency to rule from commanding heights.

We did not see an “amazing Stella” run the show in very able fashion except how conspicuously poor she was in that department.

Perhaps, unless duly settled, Marcoleta’s hardline opposition, especially in light of VP Sara no longer appearing at the budget hearing, must have had a positive effect against a penultimate plan forward to impeach VP Sara. It stands to reason that Marcoleta’s strong concern must first be disposed of before an impeachment move can even take place.

In fact, an impeachment scenario must require more meat on the bone or more weight to the scale before a respectable collective could rock the boat. In a 4 September video interview released by her office, VP Sara took it as a “window of opportunity” to belie that she was a “bratinella” and to disclose why she had forgone the “question and answer” believing the same would just be an exercise in futility.

VP Sara has now divulged how the national budget is being messed with by only two key personages of the House leadership.