The House of Representatives has adopted House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) No. 10, which expresses the chamber's commitment to establish and maintain an "eCongress" system.
House Deputy Speaker and TUCP Party-list Rep. Raymond Democrito Mendoza declared the measure as adopted during plenary session Tuesday night, Feb. 28 following a simple voice vote (ayes vs. nayes).
The eCongress system is described by the resolution as an integrated and secure digital legislative management system for Congress.
House Speaker and Leyte 1st district Rep. Martin Romualdez, Majority Leader and Zamboanga City 2nd district Rep. Manuel Jose “Mannix” Dalipe, Minority Leader and 4Ps Party-list Rep. Marcelino Libanan, Senior Deputy Majority Leader and Ilocos Norte 1st district Rep. Ferdinand Alexander “Sandro” Marcos, and Tingog Party-list Reps. Yedda Marie Romualdez and Jude Acidre introduced the resolution.
The measure states that a bicameral Congress requires close and constant collaboration, coordination, communication, and sharing of knowledge resources and information by and between both chambers.
“The Senate and the House of Representatives are cognizant of the need to continuously improve, strengthen and streamline communications between houses to enable them, singly and jointly, to efficiently and effectively perform Congress’ essential functions of representation, legislation and oversight,” the authors said.
They said advances in technology and greater connectivity present opportunities for the two houses to update their intra- and inter-chamber processes by adopting and using secure digital systems and infrastructure and online platforms to further strengthen coordination and facilitate citizen engagement in the legislative process.
“To enhance digital collaboration, communication and connectivity between both houses, and to improve their services to the people, the Senate and the House of Representatives agree and commit to undertake concerted efforts in the development of an updated digital, integrated and secure legislative management system,” the resolution read.
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Such a system could provide timely, more effective and responsive ways of managing, monitoring and reporting the legislative performance of Congress, it stated.
The amount needed for setting up and maintaining the proposed eCongress would be charged against current appropriations of the House and the Senate. Future funding requirements would be included in the annual national budget.
The Senate secretary and the House secretary-general would be authorized to jointly oversee and administer the proposed eCongress and to form a joint technical working group from members of the secretariats of the two chambers.