ASGP

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

ASGP
Sunday, 04 03, 2005

Mention IPU, the acronym for Inter-Parliamentary Union, and the next thing that comes to mind is ASGP, which stands for Association of Secretaries General of Parliaments. Like the IPU, the AGSP is based in Geneva, and alongside with the IPU it convenes its members twice a year.

One-hundred-fifty secretaries general of all parliaments represented in the IPU will converge in Manila today, to tackle its own agenda covering a whole range of parliamentary issues, including the scope and limits of investigations in aid of legislation, the status of parliamentary party groups, sources of information for parliaments, access to parliamentary buildings, and the appointment of a parliamentary ombudsman.

The ASGP serves as a forum for chief parliamentarians to exchange ideas, to solve common problems they face. It also serves as a sounding board for reform in parliamentary proceedings and rules. Through the years since its establishment in 1954, the ASGP has come up with a very rich trove of studies on parliamentary practices and rules, that paved the way for reforms in parliaments, both in structure and proceedings. It maintains a database in Geneva giving details on each of parliaments throughout the world, which can be accessed by its members.

The Philippines is represented in the ASGP by Atty. Oscar Gravides Yabes, Secretary of the Senate. Yabes, a veteran parliamentarian, has attended all sessions of the ASGP since his election as secretary of the Senate in 2000. To our friends in the ASGP - where this writer was also a member of its Executive Committee for six conferences,- Yabes has been one of its most active members, sharing and contributing immensely to the discussions of the ASGP in its plenary sessions, aside from his many written contributions to the ASGP on various topics which come out in the ASGP quarterly bulletin. Also attending the ASGP conference in Manila is Secretary General Roberto P. Nazareno of our House of Representatives.

The secretaries general of the parliaments attending the ASGP do work hard during their biennial conferences. They adopt resolutions, engage in plenary discussions, and approve for publication the research works of their colleagues. They also conduct committee deliberations that eventually impact on parliamentary proceedings. For instance, in Paris in 1994, this writer presented his own research paper on legislative inquiries in aid of legislation. There was a lively debate then on the adoption of a resolution recommending a common stand among parliaments on the invocation of the right against self-incrimination and to privacy of persons appearing before parliamentary committees. A common thread of parliamentary committees investigating government actions is the invocation of these rights, but there are also parliaments which do not honor these rights and which have been pretty successful in forcing witnesses before parliamentary investigating committees to reveal facts, circumstances, information and dealings on matters under investigation.

To my recollection, the invocation of these rights, which is a feature in most democratic countries, won the day. To this writer, in hindsight, as applied to the Philippines, that may not really be a good development in the wake of the almost criminal regular invocation of these rights in many of the celebrated corruption cases being investigated by the Senate blue ribbon committee or the House committee on good government. The Jose Pidal inquiry at the Senate and the Garcia millions in the House, for instance, and before these on the most expensive boulevard in the world abutting the conference site.

The ASGP has a big role to play in the scheme of parliamentary practices and proceedings. I am certain that Yabes and Nazareno, the veteran parliamentarians that they are, will uphold the rich tradition of Philippine representation in the ASGP by putting forward the best there is in our parliamentary traditions and rules. Yabes as the host parliamentarian will be the first speaker of the ASGP conference when it convenes today at the Philippine International Convention Center. To Mr. Ian Harris of Australia, the ASGP President, and Sir Michael Davis of the United Kingdom, also a former president of the association, whom we worked with closely in the past, our best wishes for a successful staging of the ASGP conference.

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