Your lawmaker filed either hundreds, or just a few bills. So what?

In the past week, I asked interns to check the total number of bills and resolutions filed by lawmakers in the 19th Congress.

The project was simple: find out how many measures a legislator proposed on the average, identify who submitted the highest number of proposals, and determine who filed the least.

The timing of the story, I thought, was already ripe — the 19th Congress had ended, so we can already have a better picture of the performance of members of Congress. The term of a new batch of lawmakers also begins on June 30, and the new Congress convenes on July 28.

Other methods to determine a legislator’s performance require data that are not easy to obtain. I already emailed various units in the House of Representatives requesting attendance records of lawmakers (remember when the media used to release stories on the most absentee congressman?), but as of writing, we have yet to obtain such information.

Tabulating the number of bills filed seemed the easiest and most feasible way to determine whether a member of Congress did his or her primary job, which is lawmaking.

In the process, I realized there is a need to contextualize the numbers before showing them in full. What do they really mean? After all, aren’t these figures used by lawmakers during their election campaigns to prove they did not slack off in the august chamber?

Many token resolutions may inflate a lawmaker’s legislative output.

If you go to the House website and check lawmakers’ individual pages, they will show you the sum of the bills and resolutions that they filed.

There are times though that dozens of them are just ceremonial resolutions that rarely offer substantive value in the legislative process.

For example, a quick search on the congressional database would yield more than 700 resolutions “congratulating and commending” certain individuals. Remember when the House passed a resolution congratulating BINI when it won at the MTV Europe Music Awards? A total of 29 lawmakers were listed as principal authors of that resolution.

Minority Leader Nonoy Libanan, for example, was listed to have principally authored 247 bills. Two-thirds of that number are resolutions (166), and from that fraction, nearly 100 are bills either commending someone or offering condolences to the family of a deceased individual.

Not all resolutions though are ceremonial in nature. Makabayan lawmakers are known for filing hundreds of bills calling for House inquiries into various subject matters. Gabriela Representative Arlene Brosas filed 271 resolutions, higher than her 218 bills.

Veteran lawmakers and dynasts are at advantage because they already have a body of work.

When lawmakers serve multiple terms in Congress, they build a legislative portfolio they can rely on. If a bill does not hurdle one Congress, they can just refile it in the next one.

Take for example Cagayan de Oro 2nd District Representative Rufus Rodriguez, who has served 15 non-consecutive years in Congress already. He had filed more than 100 bills just in his first week in the 19th Congress back in 2022. Many of those proposals were refiled bills from past Congresses (e.g., bills imposing logging or mining bans in his city).

Political scions can also benefit from the portfolio of their parents or relatives.

Camarines Sur 5th District Representative Migz Villafuerte has been in Congress for only three years, but he is among the 10 most prolific lawmakers of the 19th Congress by the number of bills primarily authored. That’s because he shares the primary author title in many of the bills with his father, Camarines Sur 2nd District Representative LRay Villafuerte (who is also in the top 10).

More than 70% of the bills primarily authored by the younger Villafuerte (333 out of 461 bills) were filed within the first six months of the 19th Congress, before his submissions slowed down.

Legislators holding key posts are also positioned to have a higher legislative output.

If a member of Congress is presiding over an active key committee, he or she is likely to be a primary author of more bills.

For example, Ako Bicol Representative Zaldy Co is the fifth most prolific lawmaker of the past Congress based on our tally, having authored 524 bills.

Proposals that need to determine where the funds will come from will have to go through the appropriations committee, which he led for more than two years. Bills that hurdled that committee — either the original version or its substitute version — often had his name as primary author because he was among those credited for the committee report.

Baguio Representative Mark Go ranked sixth on our tally. He primarily authored 523 bills, including 187 that were handled by his committee on higher and technical education.

Co-authorship means support for the bill, but does not mean the co-author did the heavy lifting.

If we were to include the number of bills co-authored in our tally, the most prolific lawmaker would be Tarlac 3rd District Representative Noel Rivera. He primarily authored 183 bills, but co-authored a whopping 1,738 bills, according to the House website.

During deliberations of the bill, whether at the committee or plenary level, legislators can formally express their support for the measure, along with their intention to have their names listed as co-authors. This manifestation matters in a way that it further symbolically strengthens the proposal, although it is not an indication that they heavily lobbied for the passage of the bill.

Lawmakers from the House majority are in a better position to author bills that eventually hurdle Congress and be signed into law.

While it is tempting to check which lawmakers authored bills that have now been signed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. into law, it is important to note that success rate is heavily dependent on how closely allied lawmakers are with the powers-that-be.

In the Philippines, the House, for most of history since the 1986 EDSA uprising, is composed of a majority allied with the incumbent president. The House speaker is often a strong partner of the chief executive. This means that the House tends to prioritize measures that are identified by the administration as its pet bills.

The first 10 House bills filed in the 19th Congress are pet bills of the administration. The original bill or the substitute version lists 50 to more than 100 primary authors, mostly the President’s allies.

Because of this reality, bills filed by the opposition rarely gain traction, unless they align with the priorities of the administration.

Those who filed the least number of bills cite nuances to explain low numbers.

Some lawmakers, however, filed just a few dozen bills in the last three years, way below the average of 164.

We had to reach out to a number of lawmakers to give them the opportunity to provide context to their low legislative output.

Manila 3rd District Representative and first-termer Joel Chua, who filed only 43 bills, pointed out that in his first two years, he was not allied with any major political party, so he “chose to focus mostly on bills that have a direct impact” on his constituents.

Rizal 1st District Representative Jack Duavit, who has served in the House for 18 non-consecutive years but filed only 37 bills last Congress, told Rappler that the number of measures filed is not the best metric to determine a lawmaker’s performance. “I spent most of my time working on enrolled bills, particularly on the technical working groups, and in the bicameral conference committees.”

Pangasinan 2nd District Representative Mark Cojuangco, who primarily authored only 27 bills, believes a congressman may still be productive even if he doesn’t file any bill at all. “Interactions in Congress, the Senate, the executive branch, the judiciary, and most importantly, the outcome which is felt by constituencies, are nowhere in any bills or ‘number of bills filed.’”

Still, the number of bills lawmakers authored can tell an important story.

“The primary duty of members is to legislate. In order to fulfill this duty, members shall prepare, introduce, and work for the passage of legislative measures,” the House rules handbook reads.

The quality of the bills is definitely a separate discussion, and one that is bound to be subjective.

While there are a lot of nuances attached to the number of bills that a lawmaker filed, the figures can still provide some insight into how active — or inactive — he or she is in making proposals.

Implementation of laws is another matter altogether, but a legislator’s quantitative output is a good starting point. (To be continued) – with research from Jayvee Mhar Viloria and LA Agustin/Rappler.com

NEXT: PART 2 | LIST: 19th Congress’ most prolific House lawmakers by number of bills filed

Jayvee Mhar Viloria is a development communication student at the University of the Philippines Los Baños and a reporter for Tanglaw, the student publication of UPLB College of Development Communication. He is currently a Rappler intern.

LA Agustin is a journalism and a pre-law student from Bulacan State University. She is currently a Rappler intern.