House Majority Leader Sandro Marcos said that the Anti-Political Dynasty Bill that was passed at the House of Representatives was not necessarily the best version of measure, rather it was the one that got the most support from lawmakers.
Marcos noted that when it came to passing key bills it was a numbers game, as even if bills were well-written and thoroughly thought out. A measure would not pass without the required number of votes.
“Those concerns are actually very warranted and I understand where the people are coming from. But for us…you always have to check what the numbers are for each bill,” he said to reporters during an ambush interview.
Under Philippine law, in order for a bill to be successfully passed at the lower house, an affirmative vote from two-thirds of its over 300 members must be achieved.
For a measure like an Anti-Dynasty law, however, Marcos expressed that it may be difficult to surpass the requirement particularly as many members of Congress were from Political Dynasties – including himself.
“And again, let’s call a spade a spade, there are a lot of political dynasties here in the lower house. You know I’d be an idiot if I said I wasn’t from one either, let’s be honest with ourselves here,” he said.
“So it’s not, we did not do that because that’s the bill that we want approved, we did that because that was the limit as to the support that we could garner from the lower chamber,” he added.
His statements addressed the growing concern over the passed law that sought to bar political families from holding multiple key positions in the country was too shallow in nature and merely institutionalized dynasties.
The lawmaker further noted that the decision to ultimately get through with the bill was only meant to reignite discussions into the topic that had long been stalled in both the upper and lower house.
“It was really a matter of getting it through already, that let us pass this at the House level to get the conversation started. This is not the final result of what the bill will be. It is not yet a law, this is just the version that we in the lower house were able to produce and garner support for,” he said.
Marcos also said that the Senate may ultimately decide to craft its own measure instead of adopting the version of the House, particularly as Congress would eventually conduct a bicameral committee in order to amend the measure before it is finalized.
“I highly doubt that the Senate will adopt the House version, so they will have their own debate, own provisions, and their own version,” the solon explained.
The House’s version of the measure barred families up to the second degree of consanguinity from assuming public office within the same locality. It does not disallow relatives from pursuing a position for consecutive years.
It was officially passed last 3 June, where it received a “yes” vote from 267 lawmakers with only 20 against the bill while seven others abstained.
