“Alice in Wonderland”

Sometimes I think of the events unfolding in the BENECO issue as being very like that scene in “Alice in Wonderland” when in her travels the girl comes to a fork on the road.

Standing on that crossroads contemplating whether to take the road that turns to the left, or the one that turns to the right, she looks up the tree in the middle of the road and there was the big Cheshire cat grinning at her.

“Which road should I take?” she asks the cat.

“That depends. Where are you going?” the cat asks her back.

“I don’t know,” she replies.

“Well, then in that case, I guess it doesn’t matter!” said the cat.

There’s a lot of grumblings I hear after the AGMA Part 1 but much of it coming from Alice in Wonderland, in a manner of speaking.

You’ll never know you’re wrong if you don’t know what’s right. And you cannot be confident about being right if you can’t explain why the other person is wrong.

Some MCO’s are grumbling about the unprofessionalism of the presiding officer at this recent Saturday’s Annual General Membership Assembly (AGMA) held in Kapangan. Their frustration stems from the fact they were unable to fiscalize—or even just meaningfully participate—in the supposedly democratic proceedings.

One of them must have tried to say something and was silenced by some invocation of the rules. When one of them tried to raise a point of order, apparently he was silenced by some weird instant interpretation of those same rules.

Yet when a Board-sponsored motion was made, seconded by the same movant (the Board), the matter was put to a vote immediately where the motion was overwhelmingly approved. Again, someone wanted to raise a point of order but the microphone conveniently went dead. There are no rules about that, of course.

Now I read on Facebook a lot of posts criticizing the high-handedness of the Chair—defended, predictably by some possibly even more ignorant apologist in the biblically-described manner, “the blind leading the blind.”

Let me explain the applicable rules of parliamentary procedure involved (we’ll use the Roberts/English Standard).

There are two ways that a motion could be defeated: (1) if it is not seconded by another distinct Member, meaning NOT the movant-Member himself, and (2) if, being duly-seconded, an objection is raised and the motion is defeated in a vote against the proper objection, unless the objection alternatively results in amending the motion.

To illustrate No. 1, the chair says, “Motion is made, is there a second? No second. There being none, the motion is lost.” Dead on arrival.

Number 2 is where most malicious or ignorant railroading is often made.

At the AGMA, somebody allegedly said, “If there’s a motion and a ‘second-the-motion’ there can be a votation right away” or something to that effect.

Wait a minute, not so fast, there are two proper scenarios.

Number 1, without an objection, that is WRONG. This is what the Chair should say: “Motion is made, is there a second? There is a second. Duly seconded. Is there an objection? No objection. There being none, the motion is approved.”

In short, if there is no objection, there are no two choices for the Members to choose from. So you DON’T even need a votation if there is no objection, do you? So it is anomalous to even go into ANY votation right away on an UNOPPOSED motion.

Some parliamentary setups still require an acclamation vote, which is all but ceremonial. The chair says, instead, “There being no objection, the motion may now be voted upon. All those in favor say ‘aye’ ” but how many will vote against a motion they did not even object to?

LIke I said, some setups still go through it but treat the admission of the motion as the motion to put it into a vote itself.

What would be REALLY anomalous is to go to votation right away on an UNSECONDED motion.

But the moment you have the three elements of a proper motion, namely, MOTION, SECOND and OBJECTION, that’s when ALL SHORTCUTS are off the table except one: withdrawal of the motion.

Number 2: however, if there IS an objection, then the chair should allocate debate by saying, “The objector will please state his objection. Then we shall have “X” number (one each, two each, etc.) cycles of Reply and Rejoinder for both sides. The objector now has the floor.”

RECOGNIZING OR ALLOWING AN OBJECTION IS NOT DISCRETIONARY ON THE PART OF THE CHAIR. INDEED, IF THE CHAIR CAN PREJUDGE WHETHER AN OBJECTION IS GOOD OR BAD, IT GIVES HIM A ONE-MAN MAJORITY VOTE–A CONCEPT UNKNOWN IN ANY DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET.

It is the objector who actually gets to give the first long “speech” because it is he who must expound on all the bases of his objection, impliedly waiving anything he omits.

When it’s the movant’s turn to reply, he CANNOT try to strengthen or reinforce his motion, because that would entail introducing new matter. He must only “JOIN THE ISSUES,” just address the points of objection by trying to knock down the bases of the objection. They do this “X” number of cycles, as pre-announced by the chair.

On or before they reach the limit (say, they’ve run out of arguments), any Member may rise to “move for the question,” meaning to take the vote now on the objection (not the main motion, which remains tentatively safe).

A “motion” to go for the question after debate needs no second (some yeehaws will yell “Second!” anyway which sometimes adds to the confusion), because it is only derivative or incidental to the main motion.

You can NEVER have more than ONE pending motion at any given time (except under the bewilderingly complicated Nested Roberts Format used by the UN).

Why is there no need for a second to a motion for votation? Because the chair ALLOCATED debate earlier, remember? Neither side can exceed the cycle limit. In fact, at the limit, even without a motion, the chair can interrupt anytime to call for “the question” (so as not to confuse members with “The Motion”).

Sometimes an objector can be so persuasive, even the movant is half-convinced. He moves for a suspension of the rules so he and the objector can harmonize their points, birthing an amendment.

Harmonizing takes a lot of discussion and seesawing exchanges so it’s impractical to leave the cumbersome rules “nakabalandra sa daan,” so to speak, when you’re NOT fighting anymore anyway. It’s better to just suspend the rules, allow the movant and objector to exit the plenary agenda and go into a smaller caucus.

Once they’ve hammered an amendment in language acceptable to both, the same movant for suspension now moves for the lifting of the suspension of the rules.

The chairs calls the meeting back to order and this time he really MUST NOT allow any further discussion, he assumes everything has been ironed out in caucus.

This caucus, by the way, need NOT necessarily be a small private thing. All present members in the plenary can be the same members in the caucus held right there in the same hall. Only difference is the rules are suspended during caucus, meaning all formalities of protocol have been relaxed.

After the meeting is called back to order, the chair waits for a “motion for the question” possibly, again, confusing the members.

Any one of those confused members, therefore, has a right to say, “mr. Chair, may we be privileged to have the question be read back?”

This is the clue for the movant to report the agreement reached in caucus, “Mr. Chair, we yielded to the following amendment…”

The chair then calls for the FIRST OF TWO VOTATIONS—NOT ONE: (1) First, to approve the amendment introduced by the objection, and (2) Second, to approve the Main Motion, subject to the approved amendment.

As a matter of rule rather than the exception also, it is customary for BOTH movant and objector to JOINTLY manifest that they would like to integrate the amendment into the Main Motion. If so, it is the duty of the chair to clarify to the members that the two votations would be consolidated into one—so that your vote to approve the amendnent equates to your vote to approve the motion.

Otherwise, what if some members approve the amendment but reject the motion it is supposed to amend in the first place?

Then it would really be chaos.

* * * * *

Question: Can a presiding officer (1) MAKE A MOTION or (2) VOTE?

The answer to Number 1 is NO and it is absolute. He can, however, TEMPORARILY YIELD the chair in order to descend to the plenary level and then make a motion AS A MEMBER BUT NOT AS THE CHAIR. But once he yields the chair for that specific purpose, he cannot RESUME as chair because he has to lead the advocacy and the defense of his own motion ON THE FLOOR.

So the situation is not allowed where the person yields the chair in order to field a motion and then once the motion is admitted he climbs back as the chair to help the motion he just filed a minute ago to navigate the deliberation process, guiding his own initiative to success!

The answer to number 2 is NO, in general, except to cast a tie-breaking vote.

* * * * *

MEANWHILE, what is the so-called “Point of Order?”

It is the highest special motion (again, it requires no second and it must not be subjected to any votation) that takes precedence over all other motions or incidents under present consideration.

It can be raised at any time to call the attention of the Chair that the proceedings have veered away from procedure.

When invoked, the Chair must not be offended by it because he has two choices.

One, he can explore the motion by saying, “Please state the point of order.”

The member who raised it must only state the point of order by citing the particular milestone that was missed–BUT HE CANNOT ARGUE HIS POINT.

For instance he can say, “Mr. Chair, we are still in item no 5 and we were about to take a vote.”

Sometimes it can be used to stop an unruly or disruptive manifestor, “Mr. Chair, I believe you gave the floor to Pedro, not Juan.”

The Point of Order is addressed ONLY TO THE CHAIR and his ruling must not be challenged, even if he is occasionally wrong.

Why? Because as Chair he controls the proceedings and he has a unique overview of where you all are, in relation to the agenda and the stage in which the current incident sits. This is called the power of parliamentary digress, which is a very tight leash on an otherwise liberal and highly-abusable discretion of the chair.

Most importantly, even if he thinks the Point of Order appears TO HIM to be errant, the chair–indeed, the entire body– must always yield to it. That’s what it means when we say a Point of Order ranks highest in the hierarchy of motions. He can overrule it but he must always allow the point of order to be stated, at the minimum, AND TO BE HEARD BY THE BODY. Customarily, many members may actually agree and express their agreement spontaneously by voicing it, “Point! Point!” or just plain, “Yes! Yes!” In the British parliament–the mother of all parliaments–this is known as the parliamentary din of affirmation (because, remember, a Point of Order is never subjected to an actual votation, so raising din is the closest it comes to one).

It takes a very astute presiding officer to keep track of multiple-nested sub-motions–and he may refer to his notes–but if he believes that the proceedings are still on point, he can exercise his second option: “The chair rules that the meeting remains in order and this time HE CAN ARGUE AND DEFEND HIS POINT.

Someone asked, can you point out that the Chair is “out of order?” On very rare occasions, you can raise a peremptory challenge BUT NOT during the discussion–during the votation, as you dissent.

What if the presiding officer quashes a point of order without explaining?

He probably can’t. Maybe he doesn’t even know how to preside, or has limited experience doing it– which would make little or no difference if he’s presiding over peasants who wouldn’t know any better.*

(See you on the other side of anesthesia tomorrow. Now signing off.)