P1,000-budget for CHR? How did your Reps vote? Here’s a partial list – and why there’s no full list (yet)

The House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 119-32 to endorse a P1,000-budget for the Commission on Human Rights. The matter now goes to a bicameral committee to be joined in by members of the Senate.

Whom in the House of Representatives voted for or against the move to slash the CHR’s budget? Not even House leaders could immediately say, as individual congressmen were literally lost in the crowd.

House plenary staff, pressed by media immediately after the vote, said they did not list down how individual congressmen voted because legislators were called merely to stand for a headcount after a viva voce vote – a shout of “Aye” or “Nay” – was deemed inconclusive. (Apparently, though very much outnumbered, those who voted against the move to curtail the CHR funds for 2018, were at least much louder in the first attempt to divide the House.)

Majority Leader Rodolfo Farinas could only affirm: “There is no such record as voting was by ‘ayes’ and ‘nays’, which was ultimately done…when the ‘nays’ challenged the ruling of the chair that the ‘ayes’ had it. [So] 112 members stood to register an ‘aye’ vote, while 39 stood to vote against the motion.”

As Congress staff and media try to identify those who voted No from video footage, here, unofficially, is a list of 30 legislators who House staff said were among the 32 who voted against the P1,000-budget for the Commission on Human Rights. We will update as we confirm more names: