THE legislation on the reform of government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) is constitutionally infirm and cannot measure up to the scrutiny of the Supreme Court, the House Minority leader said on Wednesday.
Lagman issued the statement as the conference committee reconvened on Wednesday and tackled the reconciled bill—House Bill 4067 and Senate Bill 2640, titled “An Act to Promote Financial Viability and Fiscal Discipline in Government-Owned or Controlled Corporations and to Strengthen the Role of the State in its Governance and Management to Make Them More Responsive to the Needs of Public Interest and For Other Purposes.
According to Lagman, the measure, a priority bill of the Aquino administration, contains provisions which violate the security of tenure of GOCC officials and abdicate the inherent power of the Congress to reorganize government agencies and entities.
He said the bill preterminates the terms of office of officials of GOCCs, which are chartered by special law and guaranteed fixed terms by providing that “all incumbent CEOs and appointive members of the Board of GOCCs shall, upon approval of this Act, have a term of office until June 30.”
“This is repugnant to the security of tenure of GOCC officers under Section 2(3) of Article IX of the Constitution, which provides that “No officer or employee of the civil service shall be removed or suspended except for cause provided by law,” said Lagman.
He said under Section 2(1) of the same Article, “the Civil Service embraces all branches, subdivisions, instrumentalities, and agencies of the Government, including Government-Owned or Controlled Corporations with original charters.”
“The term or tenure of GOCC officials cannot be preterminated by legislative fiat without any valid cause and without due process,” the legislator said.
Besides these, Lagman said the measure creates a superbody to be known as the Governance Commission for government-owned or -gontrolled corporations (GCG) attached to the Office of the President, which shall exercise monitoring and oversight powers over GOCCs, among other functions.
