One Question, One Member, One Vote

“One member, one vote. Tama ba yun, Attorney?”

This was the first question I received via text from an FB follower, as the anaesthesia began to wear out from my (thankfully) uneventful gallbladder removal surgery early this week.

So as soon as Christine wasn’t looking, I began thumbing this post on my smartphone (she had threatened to confiscate it, “Magpagaling ka muna bago ka magfefe-Facebook dyan!”), again purely as an academic matter of discussion, a mental exercise if you will. If you don’t agree with anything I say here, I don’t care.

The announcement was gender-sensitive, I’ll grant you that “one MEMBER, one vote” instead of saying “one man, one vote.”

Strictly speaking, the announcement would be considered “ex parte” (given in the absence of parties) which is unprocedural if you were to consider the three dates of the AGMA as one session, only currently on recess after the first of three meeting days. By making his announcement extraparliamentary, he did not allow any clarifications, thus making it necessary for many people to throw in their proverbial ten cent’s worth to clarify HIS ambiguity. Conventionally, the chair must not make any rulings if the assembly is on recess, he must wait for session to resume and for someone to so move. All incidents of a parliamentary session should happen IN SESSION.

Consider Congress, for example. The annual session is launched by the delivery by the President of the State of the Nation Address (SONA) on the fourth Monday of July. Congress then meets daily (except on weekends and holidays) as many days after its opening session as it wants, until at least one month before its next session.

In other words, if Congress met for 213 days (which is, theoretically, one year minus 52 Saturdays, 52 Sundays and 18 legal national holiday, and the mandatory 30-day intersession gap), all those 213 days are counted as ONE regular session. Anywhere within those 213 days, Congress may go on recess, such as in observance of a Lenten or Christmas break, election campaign, etc.) and may adjourn from day to day—but you would still string up all those fractured periods into ONE session for that particular year.

So the chair at the AGMA did not even have to correct himself for ADJOURNING last June 3 in Kapangan, because adjourning is not synonymous to ending a divisible session. There’s only one way to end every meeting, and that’s for someone to move for adjournment—even if there are two remaining days of the “session” still unconsumed.

There is not even a recess to speak of, because the three days of the AGMA do not contemplate a recess in between. Even if held at one week intervals, BENECO’s AGMA is only three days (equivalent to one full session), not three weeks.

What about the question of “is one member, one vote” proper?

NO.

It should be “ONE QUESTION, one member, one vote” and regardless if you have voted in Kapangan, you can still participate in any discussion of the same question in Bokod and in Baguio, but you just cannot cast a second vote involving the SAME question.

Can you still vote in Bokod or in Baguio even if you voted already in Kapangan? Absolutely, as long as the votation is for a DIFFERENT question.

The main purpose of discussions of any matter during plenary session is, precisely, to convince the mind of the Membership on the pros and cons of any agendum proposal. If you relegate all those who have spoken up during an earlier meeting to mere observers in the succeeding meetings, they will have no more motivation to even ATTEND the subsequent meetings—and there is a real potential that the entire SESSION comprising three days would become null and void for lack of quorum.

Quorum is the total aggregate attendance at ALL THREE meetings—you don’t contemplate three “sub-quorums” just because you broke up the session into three days.

Sometimes, in order to understand a rule, you have to push some premises in the extreme. For example, the reason the AGMA is broken up into three meetings in three separate venues is so that any member can attend whichever date and venue is most convenient. Suppose only ONE member showed up in Kapangan, and only ONE member showed up in Bokod—but 137,998 members showed up in Baguio. Would you declare the AGMA as having “failed” because only one of three “sub-quorums” was met?

Of course not. That one meeting with 137,998 attendees overwhelmingly meets the aggregate quorum required.

I know the figures I used are absurd, but like I said you have to push the premises to the extreme in order to test a rule.

For example, let’s say all members who are opposed to a particular agendum proposal are so fired up they all showed up at the first meeting, would it serve the objective of democratic and free debate to BAN them from participating in the next two meetings by declaring them as mere observers after the first meeting?

Pity those members who were not around during the first meeting, they missed some very insightful perspectives that would have informed their decision before they vote.

But you might say it’s their fault, why didn’t they show up at the first meeting? Because they understood that they can attend whichever date and venue was most convenient, that’s why. That’s what they were TOLD.

So, really, the burden rests on the Chair to make sure that whichever dinner you choose to go to, the same menu must be served, so to speak. This necessitates that all members should be entitled to hear everything from everyone on every issue at ANY of the three meetings they opt to attend. And you cannot accomplish that, as the Chair, if you insist on your “divide and subdue” policy against certain rabblerousers among the members you simply don’t like. Doing so makes you a dictator, plain and simple.

I do have one question, though. HOW would they know to enforce a “(ONE QUESTION) one member, one vote” rule?

It is only possible if votation in Kapangan was done by NOMINAL VOTING, whereby each attendee at a meeting is called individually to (1) state his vote for the record, and (2) explain his vote, if permitted. This typically consumes A LOT of time, unless each question is put on a “ballot” and the results canvassed and announced on the same occasion, or withheld for consolidation with votes over the same question collected at the other venues.*