Ills of House small committee that handled budget amendments

Congressman Toby Tiangco of Navotas City, a distant relative of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., may have helped usher in an important change in the House budget process when he shone a spotlight on a longstanding practice shrouded in secrecy.

It’s called the small committee, formed by the House annually after its passage of the proposed national budget on second reading to handle all individual amendments that will be submitted by lawmakers.

The committee is usually composed of anywhere from four to 13 lawmakers. The amendments are not discussed in open plenary, but in closed-door meetings that, as per Tiangco, do not have available minutes.

It’s a hotbed for transparency issues.

A long history

Publicly available congressional documents show that the small committee is not a recent introduction to the budget process in the House.

Rappler’s research found that the term appeared in House journals as early as 2010, when the lower chamber, under the leadership of then-House speaker Sonny Belmonte, was deliberating on the proposed national budget for 2011, the first under the presidency of Benigno Aquino III.

Even then, Albay’s Edcel Lagman was quoted as saying that that the creation of a small committee “has been an old practice,” although he believed that the House “can depart from this tradition in certain cases, like when the body has to resolve very contentious issues.”

During that same session, Cagayan de Oro 2nd District Representative Rufus Rodriguez raised concerns about the House practice “of creating and authorizing a small committee to accept and study the members’ individual amendments instead of considering the amendments in open session.”

“I (still) share the same concerns (today),” Rodriguez told Rappler.

Since 2010, at least 39 lawmakers across five Congresses and three presidencies have sat on the small committee. Membership to the panel used to be lean — only five congressmen in 2010 — but it ballooned to 13 in 2020, under the leadership of Alan Peter Cayetano.

The process

In the House, more than 300 lawmakers try to negotiate better funding for their constituents. There are also agencies lobbying for a higher budget. Navigating proposed amendments, as new House appropriations committee chairperson Mikaela Suansing points out, “is always very complicated.”

It would appear that the logic behind the small committee is to avoid holdup in the plenary, as lawmakers are already dealing with budget requests from dozens of agencies. Debates on the floor take two weeks at the minimum. During crunch time, congressmen stay past midnight to finish deliberations on the funding of every government body.

After lawmakers finish sponsoring the budget requests of all agencies, the House puts the General Appropriations Bill to a voice vote. A resounding yes signals the passage of the budget on second reading. The House majority then elects members of the small committee, which is tasked to accept proposals for individual amendments before the GAB is read on third and final reading.

There is no mention of a small committee in the House rules. In fact, the handbook offers this sequence of events for every legislative measure:

1. Debate on the bill is formally closed.
2. Committee amendments are considered.
3. Individual amendments are considered.
4. The House votes on the bill on second reading.

Tiangco pointed out that the House observes this rule in every bill it passes, except for the most important one — the national budget — where amendments are still considered after it hurdles second reading.

Flaws

Speaking to Rappler, ACT Teachers Representative Antonio Tinio called this an “opaque budget practice” justified by “parliamentary tradition.”

In 2010, he was a freshman lawmaker who, alongside his Makabayan allies, voted against the passage of the national spending bill. On October 16 that year, the House passed the budget on second reading, elected the small committee members the same early morning, and gave lawmakers until October 19 to submit their individual amendments. On November 8, the GAB was put to a final vote.

The House journal reads: “(Bayan Muna Representative Neri Colmenares) lamented that they were now being asked to approve the bill without knowing what amendments were incorporated therein.”

Lawmakers not receiving copies of the final version of the GAB subject for approval would be a recurring issue, and would worsen over the years.

In 2016, the Pantaleon Alvarez-led House was deliberating on the 2017 budget, the first for then-president Rodrigo Duterte. Lagman lamented at the time that congressmen were not shown a copy of the third reading version of the bill that incorporated the small committee amendments.

In 2020, the Cayetano-led House passed the budget on second and third reading on the same day on the basis of an urgent certification from then-president Duterte. The situation was unique in the sense that the House passed a budget on final reading even though the small committee amendments were not yet incorporated in the budget.

This practice has been adopted by the Martin Romualdez-led House since the start of the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — the budget bill passed on second and third reading on the same day, with individual amendments to be considered by the small committee in closed-door meetings thereafter.

Time for change

Tiangco did not vote for the continued speakership of Romualdez, and decided to be an independent in the 20th Congress. He cited his frustrations with Romualdez’s handling of the budget as his reason for bolting out of the supermajority.

Abolishing the small committee has become his battlecry.

“It’s like we’re giving the small committee a blank check,” he told reporters.

“We should not approve the budget on second reading if the individual amendments are not finished, and there should be no small committee. Whatever was approved on second reading should be the final version. Now, there’s no more insertions there.”

His remarks came after President Marcos delivered his State of the Nation Address that climaxed on his supposed resolve to only sign a spending bill that has no congressional insertions.

In the wake of this climate, appropriations chairwoman Suansing laid out reforms in the budget process, namely:

• abolishing the small committee
• creating a sub-committee on budget amendments review within the appropriations committee to deliberate on changes proposed by government agencies and congressional colleagues
• promising to open the bicameral conference committee proceedings to the general public
• committing to allow civil society organizations to observe all stages of the budget process

Tiangco believes the reforms introduced by the House is proof that he’s speaking gospel truth, although he’s not yet fully convinced by the actions of the House supermajority.

“All individual amendments must be discussed in plenary, prior to approval of the House GAB on second reading,” Tiangco told Rappler.

“That there are 1,000 line items is not an excuse. If we can do it for all other bills, why can’t we do it for the most important bill passed? That’s our job — no matter how hard it is, we should do it. No ifs and buts,” he added.

Tiangco also challenged Ako Bicol Representative Zaldy Co, Suansing’s predecessor who was at the center of one of the most controversial national budgets in recent history, to release amendments done by the small committee for the 2025 General Appropriations Act.

“We cannot move forward and forget the sins of the past,” Tiangco said.

Up to now, the Senate and the House have been pointing fingers at who introduced amendments in the final stages of the 2025 budget — one that slashed funding for the Department of Education and state health insurer PhilHealth, while keeping billions of pesos in funding for the AKAP financial aid program that has been branded by critics as tantamount to lawmakers’ pork barrel.

Neither the House nor the Senate has released official minutes or documents that would shed light on the controversy.

Former finance undersecretary Cielo Magno, who is leading the campaign to open the bicameral conference committee deliberations to the general public, welcomes the promise of change by the House, but underscored the need to concretize transparency efforts.

“The summary documents and matrix, as well as public access to them, are important. Even congressmen don’t have access or they don’t regularly produce the matrix, which makes it hard to track. Since there are thousands of entries, a matrix is useful to summarize and track changes,” Magno told Rappler.

“It will be good to issue a challenge to the Senate to commit in doing the same level of transparency and accountability,” she added. – Rappler.com