Role of committees in passing a bill into law
The standing committees of the Senate or the House of Representatives,
which actually operate as "little legislatures," determine the fate of most
proposed measures. There are committee hearings scheduled to discuss the bills
referred. Committee members and staff frequently are experts in the subjects of
bills which they are tasked to review, and it is at the committee stage that a
bill goes through the
sharpest scrutiny. If a measure is to
be substantially revised, the revision usually occurs at the committee level.This stage in the passage of a bill is not mentioned under the 1987
Constitution because the fundamental law simply serves as an outline of how
the Government should work. The cracks are filled by the internal rules and
regulations promulgated by the Senate or the House of Representatives.
The scrutiny at the committee level makes legislation easier because committee
members usually make sure that the law is wise, practical and constitutional
before they submit the same for first-reading calendar. Of course, it
sometimes happens that a law is declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court
for violating the fundamental law but the reason why this does not always
happen is, first, the strict scrutiny at the committee level and, second, the
debates and discussions in the second reading.
A committee may dispose of a bill in one of several ways: it may
approve, or
reject, the legislation with or
without amendments; rewrite the bill
entirely; reject it, which essentially
kills the bill;
report it favorably or without
recommendation, which allows the chamber to consider the bill. It must be
noted that under Section 29, Rule XI of the Rules of the Senate, if the
reports submitted are unfavorable, they shall be transmitted to the archives
of the Senate, unless five Senators shall, in the following session, move
for their inclusion in the Calendar for Ordinary Business, in which case the
President shall so order.
Again, the above details are no longer found in the 1987 Constitution. They
are rules promulgated by the Senate or the House of Representatives to make
sure that the law-making process is beneficial to all concerned.
