Does Productivity Increase Perceived Effectiveness?

Assessing The Legislative Productivity and The Legislative Effectiveness of The Members
of The House of Representatives of The 17th Congress of The Philippines
Bea Czarina B. Navarro

Abstract

Power and influence has long been an interesting aspect to study in order to determine the effects on
political activities. In this paper, power is to be assessed in the legislative body of the Philippines through levels of
perceived legislative effectiveness. This paper seeks to answer the question, “Is there a significant relationship
between the number of bill authorship and/or coauthorship of the members of the house of representatives
(HOR) of the 17th Congress of the Philippines and their perceived legislative effectiveness? Are there other
determinants affecting the effectiveness ratings of a legislator?” It is particularly an interesting topic because it
involves the measuring of the abilities of the legislators and the performance of legislators in terms of
productivity and how it in turn affects their colleague’s perception of effectiveness.

The main argument of this paper is that higher legislative productivity through the number of bill
authorship and/or coauthorship result into higher legislative effectiveness ratings of legislators. The three-factor
determinants given by Weissert (1991) are also taken into account as control variables in the study, however, it is
slightly revised because of the peculiarity of the Philippine Congress. The data gathered are a compilation on the
profiles of each of the members of the HOR 17th Congress that is gotten from either the website of the Congress
or through their certificates of candidacy (COC) filed through the Commission on Elections (COMELEC). Also,
members of the of HOR of the 17th Congress are also tasked to answer a survey seeking to rate their colleagues
with 1 being not effective and 5 being very effective in order to measure legislative effectiveness. The
methodology used is a multiple regression analysis involving ordinary least squares.

Findings show that there is a significant positive relationship between bill authorship and legislative
effectiveness ratings. Likewise, being a lawyer, being a member of the majority party, having a leadership position
in the Congress, being a chairman in a committee also has a significant relationship with legislative effectiveness.
However, bill coauthorship was found out to not have a significant relationship with legislative effectiveness since
offices do not tend to tap those legislators which they seem to be effective but they do room-to-room visits on
each offices to bring coauthorship request forms. A recommendation for future research is to include indicators
such as attendance and net worth to test on legislative effectiveness. Later on, legislative effectiveness ratings
may serve as the independent variable to test on reelection chances, and bill success.

Keywords: Legislative effectiveness, bill authorship, bill coauthorship, house of representatives, Philippines
INTRODUCTION

Power and influence in the Congress has long been an interesting topic in political
science since the job of Congressmen include passing legislation, overseeing the bureaucracy,
mediating the requests of the constituents, and others (Best, 1971; Frantzich, 1979; Weissert,
1991). Abstractions on power and influence have been developed by several different political
scientists. One of those abstractions explains “A has power over B when A causes B to do
something B would not otherwise do” (Hall, 1992, 207). This paper focuses on the legislator’s
job as lawmakers and not much as representatives of their districts since power in the Congress
as defined by Frantzich (1979, 411) in his paper is the “ability to move one’s legislation through
the decision-making labyrinth.” The significance of a congressman succeeding at passing
legislation cannot be denied thus, strategies and resources which make these legislators
effective must be taken into account (Frantzich, 1979).

An indicator introduced by Weissert (1991) in measuring the power and influence of

legislators in the legislative process is the so-called “legislative effectiveness.” This concept
will be used in order to establish its relationship with legislative productivity. Perceptions of
legislators on their colleagues, also known as the reputational approach (Frantzich, 1979) in
measuring legislative effectiveness, are used in order to gather ratings of effectiveness, while
the number of bill authorship and/or coauthorship is the indicator for the latter concept. The
paper focuses on the number of bill authorship and coauthorship because its scarce usage from
scholars. Most scholars tend to utilize the concept in order to gauge proximity and networks
among legislators, rather than using it in a linear way, which makes this study new.

Other concepts, which Weissert (1991) proposed to be affecting legislative effectiveness

such as age, occupation, party membership, committee chairmanship, membership on key
legislative committees, and terms served are also given attention in this paper and each one’s
relationship with effectiveness ratings is also looked upon in order to establish interesting
relationships among these variables.

This study aims to validate the relationship between legislative productivity and
legislative effectiveness among the members of the HOR of the 17th Congress of the
Philippines. Questions that are answered in this paper are the following:

1) Is there a significant relationship between bill coauthorship and legislative

effectiveness among the members of the HOR of the 17th Congress of the
Philippines?

2) Is there a significant relationship between bill authorship and legislative

effectiveness among the members of the HOR of the 17th Congress of the
Philippines?

3) How do the other independent variables such as age, sex, occupation, party
membership, committee chairmanship, membership on key legislative
committees, representation and terms served affect bill coauthorship?

4) How do the independent and control variables such as legislative productivity

through bill authorship and bill coauthorship, age, sex, occupation, party
membership, committee chairmanship, membership on key legislative
committees, representation and terms served affect each other? 


The informal hypotheses of this research is that there is a significant positive

relationship between legislative productivity (through bill authorship and coauthorship) and
legislative effectiveness, meaning, as the number of bills authored and/or coauthored by a
legislator rises, the levels of perceived legislative effectiveness also rises. The argument of this
paper explains that legislators tend to be seen as effective if they introduce a bill frequently and
be asked for coauthorship of bills.

The rationale in doing a paper on the legislative body is because most laws come from
the Congress, which shape up the society we live in right now. It is important to look at the
productivity of the said body since times are fast and changing and the laws we live by must
follow the pace. Legislators are also vital because they voice out the demands of their
constituents thus, if proven that legislative productivity affects perceived levels of effectivity,
then, other important follow-up questions for future research may spring out from this such as
questions of “Does higher perceived level of effectiveness of a legislator in the Congress
guarantee reelection?” or “Does higher perceived level of effectiveness of a legislator increase
the chances of bill success?” These questions are recommended for future research since it
cannot be answered through this research paper as the 17th congress of the Philippines has just
started. Bills passed during the first year of the 17th Congress are still lacking in number to be
studied.

Legislative effectiveness is measured through legislative effectiveness ratings which

involves a survey form that asks legislators to rate his or her peers with 1 being “not effective at
all” and 5 being “very effective.”

This paper uses quantitative methods through multiple regression analysis and ordinary
least squares (OLS). Some data are gathered online through the official website of the
Philippine House of Representatives (www.congress.gov.ph). The site has the LEGIS section
wherein all of the bills filed by the legislators of a certain congress are listed. Congressional
profiles for the district representatives and the partylist representatives, however, are gathered
through the certificates of candidacy and certificates of nomination, respectively, filed through
the COMELEC Main Office in Intramuros because there are no digital copies available online.

A certain limitation of this research is the reliability of the legislative effectiveness

ratings due to two reasons. First, the reputational approach was used to assess legislative
effectiveness and it is highly dependent on perception which is very subjective. Second, some
offices might have forced their staffs to answer instead of the legislator himself or herself due to
the legislator’s busy schedule. At some point, I was not able to check since I leave copies of the
survey form and return after some time to claim the survey form.

This paper is divided into different sections. Part 1 discusses previous literature
regarding the topic. Part 2 introduces the theoretical framework, which serves as the structure
on how the research works. Part 3 discusses the data gathering and methodology used in this
paper. Part 4 discusses the findings and results from the regression. Part 5 concludes this paper.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

The Congress is a political institution (Koempel and Schneider, 2007) and it is the
bedrock of a democratic political system (Olson, 1994). The functions of the Congress are two-
fold: (1) for representation and (2) for legislation (Olson, 1994). A member of the Congress is
tasked to take all the desires, sentiments, and grievances of his or her constituents and translate
it into policies. Societal interests are varied which makes the legislature lightning rods for
conflicting sentiments (Krehbiel, 2004). The policymaking in Congress is an instrument for
determining who gets what which incites competition among groups of people and regions to
balance out one interest against the others in the legislative process (Koempel and Schneider,
2007).

The legislative process, according to Koempel and Schneider (2007), involves building
a new majority to move the legislation forward. Or, opponents and competitors may also build a
new majority to hinder legislation that has not been stopped. Pressure from outside such as
constituents, lobbyists, the president and his administration and the media exists in order to
influence the outcome (Koempel and Schneider, 2007). Power play never leaves the scene.

Political scientists believe that legislative effectiveness is crucial in understanding

legislative politics (Volden and Wiseman, 2009) since legislative effectiveness is a
measurement for power (Frantzich, 1979). Despite its primacy in politics, however, there are
only a few scholars who study legislative effectiveness, its determinants and effects (Volden
and Wiseman, 2008; Volden and Wiseman, 2009).

The principal limitation, however, of using legislative effectiveness as the measurement

for power is that there are many ways in which the content of legislation can be affected
(Frantzich, 1979). Also, albeit the primary task of Congressmen is the legislation, it cannot be
assumed that their measurement of effectiveness is only through the passage of bills considering
that some legislators’ objective is to block the passage of legislation of other Congressmen
(Frantzich, 1979). However, this being said, it cannot be denied that even though the passage of
legislation isn’t the sole measure for legislative power or influence, it is still considered as the
most or one of the most important measure (Frantzich, 1979).

According to Weissert (1991), legislative effectiveness is the “function of his or her

attributes and skills, the formal position the legislator holds in the legislature, and the
commitment of personal resources the legislator is willing to make the legislative process.”
Hasecke and Mycoffe (2007, 609) also provided a much simpler definition for legislative
effectiveness, which is “the ability to advance bills sponsored by the member through the
legislative process.” The operationalization of this definition is much more simpler than the first
one provided by Weissert (1991) as it only counts the number of bills passed by a congressman
in a term (Osnes, 2014).

Legislative effectiveness, according to Frantzich (1979) and Weissert (1991), can be

measured in three different approaches. First is the positional approach wherein a legislator is
regarded as influential through his or her possession of a formal leadership position (Frantzich,
1979; Weissert, 1991). Second, the reputational approach claims that a legislator may be
identified as belonging to the power elite through knowledgeable resources (Frantzich, 1979;
Weissert, 1991). The advantage of reputational approach is that it permits the gathering of data
on unrecorded behavior (Hall, 1992). The disadvantage, however, is the validity of these
measures (Hall, 1992). Lastly, the decision-making approach is the approach wherein the focus
is on the capacity to push forward the legislation through the decision-making labyrinth
(Frantzich, 1979; Weissert, 1991).

Meyer (1980), Hamm, Harmel and Thompson (1983), Saint-Germain (1989), Weissert
(1991) and Miquel and Snyder (2006) utilized the reputational approach to measure legislative
effectiveness where legislators were asked to answer elite surveys to create individual rankings
of legislative effectiveness. Olson and Nonidez (1972), on the other hand, used the proportion
of bills introduced to bills passed to generate a legislative effectiveness index. A novel and
innovative measurement for legislative effectiveness used by Hall (1992) involved a face-to-
face interview with legislative staffers. Here, Hall (1992) divided the interview into two parts in
which the first part involves rating the committee members according to influence while the
second part involves the step-by-step process concerning the bill’s development. To date, there
is still no general metric used for legislative effectiveness (Volden and Wiseman, 2008).
However, in this study, the reputational approach is used since perceptions of legislators have
an important role in determining legislative effectiveness.

This study seeks to answer whether legislative productivity affects legislative

effectiveness among members of the HOR of the 17th Congress of the Philippines. Legislative
productivity can be measured in different ways such as the bills introduced, etc. In this paper,
the number of bill authorship and coauthorship of a legislator is used as the indicator for
legislative productivity. Scholarly works involving bill coauthorship, however, have utilized the
concept in a different way. For example, the work of Aleman (2008) used bill coauthorship as a
measure for proximity and networks among legislator and not as a linear variable. This gap is
filled by this research to introduce a new way of looking into the concept.

Several other studies were made in order to assess legislative effectiveness (Frantzich,
1979; Weissert, 1991; Volden and Wiseman, 2008; Volden and Wiseman, 2009). The study that
is used particularly in this study is the study made by Weissert (1991) in which he developed a
three-factor model, which served as the control variables affecting legislative effectiveness.
These three factors include personal attributes, institutional role and legislative commitment, all
of which further branches into more specific determinants (Weissert, 1991).

For personal attributes, it is expected that legislators who underwent formal education
are more expressive regarding their thoughts within the legislative branch and moreso in
dealing with the press, hence the positive relationship between education and legislative
effectiveness (Weissert, 1991). Also, it is expected that legislators with a law degree have more
legislative influence (Weissert, 1991). Having a law degree is considered an important personal
attribute because lawyers are not only prevalent in the every branch of the government
especially in the legislative branch but they also possess a “greater political elite group
characteristics than the general population” (Derge, 1962, 52).

Another personal attribute that is considered to have an effect to legislative effectiveness

is the age of the legislator (Weissert, 1991). Several scholars such as Fengler (1980), Schubert
(1988) and Weissert (1991) have found out that biological aging has a considerable impact on
political activity. A study made by Schubert (1988) showed that as government officials age
until their midfifties, their political activity and leadership increases, however, when they reach
their sixties to seventies, it decreases (Schubert, 1988). A similar finding was gathered by Verba
and Nie (1972) that the decline on the political activity of elderly government officials can be
attributed to socioeconomic factors. Therefore, findings show that the relationship between age
and effectiveness is curvilinear (Schubert, 1988; Weissert, 1991). As explained by Fengler
(1980), the older legislators achieve more than the younger legislators because the older ones
are more experienced, more strategic, more cautious and more accurate as compared to the
younger legislators who are at the risk of doing trial and error. However, younger legislators
tend to produce more bills than the elderly legislators (Fengler, 1980).

Volden and Wiseman (2008) showed that women in Congress appear to have limitations
in putting forward their legislative agendas than males. The gender hypothesis by Volden and
Wiseman (2008, 9) posits that “women are (a) likely to sponsor and cosponsor more pieces of
legislation, (b) less likely to receive committee consideration of their sponsored and
cosponsored legislation, (c) less likely to have their legislation reach the floor of the House, (d)
less likely to have their legislation pass the House upon reaching the floor, and (e) less likely to
have their legislation become law after passing the House.” Jeydel and Taylor (2003) argues the
opposite that women are not demonstrably less effective than men on turning bills into laws,
utilizing data from the 103rd-105th American Congresses.

Lastly, for personal attribute, party membership is also treated as a determinant of

legislative effectiveness (Frantzich, 1979; Meyer, 1980; Hamm, Harmel and Thompson, 1983;
Weissert, 1991; Cox and McCubbins, 1993; Aldrich, 1995; Volden and Wiseman, 2008). Those
who belong to the majority party tends to have more power and influence over the others
(Gross, 1953; Frantzich, 1979). This relationship is exemplified in North Carolina in which the
Democratic party dominates (Weissert, 1991). The majority party maximizes their returns
through electing leaders and passing legislation (Crain and Tollison, 1980). Party influence
hypothesis by Volden and Wiseman (2008, 6) claims that “members of the majority party are:
a) more likely to receive committee consideration of their sponsored and cosponsored
legislation, (b) more likely to have their legislation reach the floor of the House, (c) more likely
to have their legislation pass the House upon reaching the floor, and (d) less likely to have their
legislation become law conditional on passing the House.”

Of the five individual characteristics tested by Weissert (1991), however, results showed
that party membership was the only factor significant across the four years that were studied.
Others, such as being a lawyer was significant only for three years while aging was significant
only in two years (Weissert, 1991).
 With regard to institutional role, three things are to be considered: (1) party leadership,
(2) committee leadership and (3) committee membership (Weissert, 1991). According to
Froman (1967), Fenno (1973), Frantzich (1979), Weissert (1991), and Volden and Wiseman
(2008), Congressmen who possess leadership positions in general are most likely to be
influential in the legislative branch (Frantzich, 1979; Hamm, Harmel and Thompson, 1983).
Rosenthal (1981) also explains that party leaders have an important role in the operations of the
legislative body. Being a committee chairman is also an advantage since he or she has
considerable control over the agenda and over the passage of legislation (Hamm, 1980; Francis,
1989). Also, the legislative staff is more responsive to and easily controlled by committee
chairmen (Rosenthal, 1981). Committee membership especially on key committees has also a
positive relationship with legislative effectiveness (Weissert, 1991). Factors concerning
institutional have also been found to have a positive relationship with legislative effectiveness
with committee chairmanship increasing a legislator’s effectiveness rating by 19 points on
average (Weissert, 1991).

Lastly, legislative commitment can be measured through a variety of ways; however, the
involvement of the legislator in the legislative process is assessed through the number of bills
introduced (Weissert, 1991) and number of terms served (Frantzich, 1979; Meyer, 1980;
Hamm, Harmel and Thompson, 1983; Weissert, 1991; Volden and Wiseman, 2008). Bill
introduction serve as the primary job of legislators and this action can benefit them politically
(Weissert, 1991). An effective legislator would most likely have lots of energy and ideas in
mind, which he or she would translate into bills later on (Weissert, 1991).

On the other hand, in the study made by Frantzich (1979), experience affects legislators
through the development of political, procedural and substantive expertise, which in turn
garners respect from fellow legislators. The longer the tenure, the higher the effectiveness of the
legislator and the process is called learning-by-doing (Miquel and Snyder, 2004) Economically
speaking, Dal Bo and Rossi (2011) claimed that longer terms result into higher legislative effort
because this legislative effort yields returns over multiple periods.
 Weissert (1991) found out that both predictors on legislative commitment have positive
relationship with legislative effectiveness increasing the legislator’s effectiveness rating by .2
and 2 points, respectively.

Other determinants of power or legislative effectiveness for this matter proposed by

other scholars, which was found out to have a significant relationship with legislative
effectiveness, include electoral security (Frantzich, 1979), and ideology (Frantzich, 1979;
Volden and Wiseman, 2008). These factors are also interesting to look at in this research.

Frantzich (1979) showed that electoral security affects legislative effectiveness through
the controlled behavior of legislators motivated by the desire for reelection. Osnes (2014),
surprisingly, on the other hand, found out that there is a negative relationship between the
electoral margin and legislative effectiveness.

Regarding the ideological perspective, legislators possessing moderate ideology are

claimed to be more effective than extremists (Frantzich, 1979; Volden and Wiseman, 2008).

For Caldeira and Patterson (1987), most of these determinants affect political friendships
in the legislative body, which in turn affect legislative effectiveness. Taking all these
determinants of legislative effectiveness into account helps in understanding and predicting the
productivity and output of the Congress (Frantzich, 1979). As an independent variable
correlating to PAC funding, vote margins (Miquel and Snyder, 2004; Hogan, Kromer and
Wrzenski, 2016), leadership role and bill success. Weissert (1991) found out that legislative
effectiveness have a positive significant relationship with the abovementioned dependent
variables. Hogan, Kromer and Wrzenski (2016) explains that in analyzing legislative elections
in eighteen states over two election cycles, those who introduce more legislation generally get
higher shares of votes during elections.

Contrary to the findings of Weissert (1991), however, Frantzich (1979) found out that a
high score of legislative effectiveness of a legislator leads to a decrease in his or her electoral
margin than those with less effective in the legislative branch. It is suggested by Frantzich
(1979) that legislators, in order to improve their electoral means, they must consider pursuing
other activities that reward their constituents.

The gap of the research that has been done regarding legislative effectiveness involves
the question of which is the best definition, measure and operationalization for legislative
effectiveness. Several scholars (Olson and Nonidez, 1972; Meyer, 1980; Hamm, Harmel and
Thompson, 1983; Saint-Germain, 1989; Weissert, 1991; Hall, 1992; Miquel and Snyder, 2006)
proposed different ways of measuring legislative effectiveness, however, the validity of these
measurements are still questionable. Another gap that literature has failed to answer is how bill
coauthorship may be used as an indicator for legislative productivity since studies involving bill
coauthorship (e.g. Aleman, 2008) are only a few and only explains proximity among legislators
and not productivity. This research focuses on answering how bill coauthorship can be used as
an indicator for legislative productivity (aside from other indicators such as bill success, vote
margin, etc as mentioned by Weissert (1991) in his study) as affects perceived levels of
legislative ratings among the members of the HOR of the 17th Congress of the Philippines.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This paper seeks to answer the question, “How do legislative productivity affect the
levels of perceived legislative effectiveness of the members of the HOR of the 17th congress of
the Philippines?” To test influence in the Congress, legislative effectiveness is used as
measurement. According to Weissert (1991), legislative effectiveness is the “function of his or
her attributes and skills, the formal position the legislator holds in the legislature, and the
commitment of personal resources the legislator is willing to make the legislative process.”
Here, in this paper, however, it is the perceptual level of effectiveness (through productivity) of
a legislator as perceived by his or her colleagues.

This paper looks into the relationship between legislative productivity and legislative
effectiveness of the members of the HOR of the 17th Congress of the Philippines. As stated
earlier, there is no universal measurement for legislative effectiveness and it can be measured in
several different ways such as through the positional, reputational and decision-making
approaches. However, most scholars tend to utilize the reputational approach since it gives the
perceptions of legislators on their colleagues. This is somewhat reliable in a sense that they
have a firsthand connection with their colleagues and they know them personally, and also
unreliable in a way that the reputational approach is very subjective and their definition for
“legislative effectiveness” due to this subjectivity may be compromised.

On the other hand, legislative productivity also is a vague concept as there are many
ways in order to measure it. For one, bills introduced may be a measure for legislative
productivity as well as bill success. This paper introduces bill coauthorship as measurement for
legislative productivity as it is a novel concept to use in a linear way. Previous studies made
such as the work of Aleman (2008) have used coauthorship to gauge proximity and networks.
Also, there are only a few studies that look into coauthorship thus, it is the chosen measurement
for legislative productivity to produce more study regarding the concept. Albeit it is a new and
somewhat vague concept to assess, bill coauthorship maintains a good argument for this
research, since it is argued that a legislator that is tapped frequently by other offices for
coauthorship affects its level of perceived legislative effectiveness.

Prior studies on legislative effectiveness like that of Weissert (1991) showed a three-
factor model to determine legislative effectiveness. These determinants are as follows: (1)
personal attributes, (2) institutional role, and (3) legislative commitment. The personal attributes
that are taken into consideration are age, education (whether formal or informal), occupation
(whether a lawyer or not) and party membership (whether belonging to a majority party or not.
Institutional role, on the other hand, consists of party leadership, committee chairmanship and
membership on key legislative committees. Legislative commitment’s indicators are the number
of bills introduced and terms served in Congress. However, in this paper, a little deviation from
the model is undertaken wherein for personal attributes, education is dropped since it is
measured only through formality and as I’ve gathered data, all legislators attended formal
schooling. Education is replaced by sex since previous research as shown in the literature
review claims that sex affects legislative influence. Also, party leadership is dropped due to the
fact that political parties in the Philippines are not strong enough to sustain leaderships and it is
replaced by legislative leadership, in which I include certain leadership positions in the
Congress (House speaker, floor leaders, deputy leaders, etc). Representation is also added
because a member of the house of representatives may either be elected by their respective
district or nominated by their respective partylist. Legislative attendance is also a variable in
which I would like to include in this paper to test on legislative effectiveness, however, due to
time constraints, I was not able to encode the data since it involves the encoding of 88
documents containing data on the attendance of 292 legislators, all in all (available at the
Congressional Records Section of the Congress website).

These determinants are tested in the study as independent and control variables, while
legislative effectiveness is tested as the dependent variable through the legislative effectiveness
ratings. Legislative productivity serves as the independent variable and is assessed through the
no. of bill authorship and no. of bill coauthorship of a legislator. These are examined
individually for a reason which will be discussed in the discussion of findings.

The hypothesis of this research is that higher levels of legislative productivity, which in
this case, is the legislator’s bill authorship and/or coauthorship results into higher levels of
perceived legislative effectiveness. The model below consists of the independent variable which
is legislative effectiveness, the control variables which are age, education, occupation, party
membership, party leadership, committee chairmanship, membership on key committees, bills
introduced and terms served, and the dependent variable which is bill coauthorship.

LEGISLATIVE EFFECTIVENESS = LEGISLATIVE PRODUCTIVITY (through Bill

Authorship and Bill Coauthorship) + Age + Sex + Occupation + Legislative
Leadership + Party Leadership + Committee Chairmanship + Membership on Key
Committees + Terms served + Representation

Dependent Variable (Legislative

Effectiveness)

INDEPENDENT VARIABLES (LEGISLATIVE PRODUCTIVITY through

BILL AUTHORSHIP AND BILL COAUTHORSHIP);
CONTROLS (Age + Sex + Occupation + Party Membership + Legislative
Leadership + Committee Chairmanship + Membership on Key Committees
+ Representation + Terms served)
 The dependent variable in this research is legislative effectiveness which, according to
Frantzich (1979) and Weissert (1991), as discussed in the literature review, can be measured in
three different approaches, which are the positional approach, reputational approach and the
decision-making approach. Political scientists such as Meyer (1980), Hamm, Harmel and
Thompson (1983), Saint-Germain (1989), Weissert (1991) and Miquel and Snyder (2006)
utilized the reputational approach to measure legislative effectiveness where legislators were
asked to answer elite surveys to create individual rankings of legislative effectiveness. In this
research, the same measurement is used since the argument of this paper relies mainly on the
perceptions of legislators on their colleagues. On the other hand, the independent variable,
which is legislative productivity, is measured through the number of bills authored and number
of bills coauthored by a legislator. This is to test whether which one/s really affect legislative
effectiveness.

The control variables are measured as follows: (1) age, through the number of years
lived since birth, (2) sex, male or female, (3) occupation, whether or not a legislator is a lawyer,
(4) party membership, whether or not the legislator belongs to the majority party, (5) legislative
leadership, whether or not the legislator holds a leadership position within the house of
representatives, (6) committee chairmanship, whether or not a legislator is a chairman of a
committee, (7) membership on key committees, whether or not a legislator is a member of a key
legislative committee, (8) representation, whether a representative is a district representative or
a partylist representative, and (9) terms served, the number of terms a legislator has served in
Congress.

The unit of analysis is the legislator. The population of the research will be limited to
members of the HOR of the 17th Congress of the Philippines since there 292 legislators, this
research also has 292 observations. These legislators are chosen given the fact that they have a
very interesting dynamism and most of them are very influential, they belong to very influential
families, they contribute much to the development of the Philippines or they are a public
nuisance. Examples of very interesting legislators during the 17th Congress are ex-president
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, former first lady Imelda Marcos, and others. Their personal
backgrounds and characters, which are examined in this paper, give interesting points to look at
in this paper. For example, majority of legislators tend to be businessmen rather than lawyers,
which are taken into account later on in this paper.

DATA GATHERING AND METHODOLOGY

The data gathering for legislative effectiveness involves asking the legislators to answer
a survey (see Appendix A) or to attend an interview in which they are tasked to rank all their
peers according levels of legislative effectiveness. The surveys were handed out in every
legislator’s office in the Batasang Pambansa Complex. Informed consent forms (see Appendix
B) are handed out to the legislators before the survey or interview. The answers are tallied on a
continuous scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being “not effective at all” and 5 being “very effective.” Some
legislators chose not to participate in the study because of doubts on confidentiality even though
confidentiality is guaranteed in the informed consent form. All in all, I’ve gathered around 150
respondents in different offices rating each and every 292 legislators (292 responses per survey
form, excluding deceased Jum Akbar, deceased Tupay Loong, appointed Mark Villar). In some
surveys, I was able to interview the legislator themselves, for instance, Cong. Eric Olivarez (1st
district, Parañaque), Cong. Ted Montoro (AASENSO Partylist), Cong. Mark Go (Baguio City),
etc. Some surveys were answered by the legislator’s chief of staff for the reason that they do not
know so well their colleagues (especially for the first termers) or they are too “busy” to answer
the forms. Those who were not attending their office in the Batasang Pambansa Complex were
contacted through email or through the mobile number of their chief of staff which I was able to
get at the directory of a particular staff in the Congress. If they were willing to answer the
survey, I made an online form for them for convenience especially in cases wherein their
district office if far away from Metro Manila. The 150 responses for legislative effectiveness
ratings was encoded into an excel file and averaged to have the final legislative effectiveness
ratings.

Congressional profiles (age, sex, occupation and party membership) are available
through the legislator’s certificates of candidacy (for district representatives) and certificates of
nomination (for partylist representatives) filed before the Commission on Elections
(COMELEC). It is particularly requested in the Main Office of the COMELEC in Intramuros,
Manila. Regarding the number of bill authorship and coauthorship, data may be accessed
through the LEGIS section of the website of the Congress (www.congress.gov.ph) wherein all
the bills introduced and coauthored are listed per legislator of different congresses. Other data
such as the committee membership, committee chairmanship, representation, term and
legislative leadership are available also at the website of the Congress.

The methodology that is used in this study is quantitative method through multiple
regression analysis with the independent variables, which are legislative productivity, age, sex,
party membership, legislative leadership, committee chairmanship, membership on key
legislative committees, representation and terms served affecting the dependent variable, which
is legislative effectiveness. In this case, ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and cross-
sectional analysis are used for the assessment of the relationship in the linear regression model.
The regression equation is:

Y = a + B1x1 + B2x2 + B3x3 + B4x4 + B5x5 + B6x6 + B7x7 + B8x8 + B9x9

where y=legislative effectiveness; x1= no. of bill authorship and/or coauthorship;

x3=age; x4=sex; x5=party membership; x6=legislative leadership; x7=committee chairmanship;

x8=membership on key legislative committees; x9=representation; x10=terms served

The null hypothesis for this research among members of the HOR of the 17th Congress are (1)
Ho1: B1=0, controlling for x2, x3, x4, x5, x6, x7, x8, and x9 which means that there is no significant
relationship between bill authorship and/or coauthorship, and legislative effectiveness
controlling for age, occupation, party membership, party leadership, committee chairmanship,
membership on key legislative committees, bills introduced and terms served.

DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

The members of the HOR of the 17th Congress of the Philippines consist of 292
legislators (excluding Jum Akbar, deceased, Tupay Loong, deceased and Mark Villar,
appointed) with 235 district representatives and 57 partylist representatives. 86 of these
legislators consist of women while 206 are males. Regarding occupation, 94 of them comes
from the business sector, 70 of these legislators are lawyers while the remaining 128 have other
different jobs. A total of 266 legislators belong to the majority parties while 26 belong to the
minority parties. For age, three legislators are still in their twenties, 33 are in their thirties, 78
are in their forties, 91 are in their fifties, 52 are in their sixties, 29 are in their seventies while
four of them are in their eighties. The average age of the legislators is at 53. In terms of terms
served, surprisingly, this batch of legislators has a great number of neophytes, at 134, which is
nearly half of the number of legislators. 82 of them, however, are second-termers and 76 are
third-termers. The average bill authorship, bill coauthorship and effectiveness ratings for a
legislator are at 37.16, 46.64 and 3.51, respectively.

Every variable except age squared is expected to have a positive significant relationship
with legislative effectiveness. If there really is a curvilinear relationship between age and
legislative effectiveness then the coefficient for age must be positive while age squared must be
negative. However, results show otherwise.

The regression table below shows the results of the multiple regression using ordinary
least squares. Six out of the 12 variables are significant with their p value less than 0.05. Total
productivity, which was measured through the combination of bill authorship and coauthorship,
was significant and increases effectiveness ratings by 0.000693 points. Being a lawyer also
increases effectiveness ratings by 0.0193 points. Belonging to the majority party, however,
surprisingly, decreases effectiveness ratings by 0.0866 points. Legislative leadership plays also
an important role in legislative effectiveness as it increases it by 0.20759 points on average.
Committee chairmanship also increases levels of effectiveness by 0.0846 points. Terms served
is a very strong indicator of effectiveness ratings as the number of terms increases the ratings by
0.0531 points.

Table 1. Regression Analysis of Perceived Legislative Effectiveness (Total Productivity –

joint measure for bill authorship and coauthorship)
totalprod 0.000693 (4.92)**
female 0.0193 (0.94)
lawyer 0.0667 (2.72)**
businessman 0.00687 (0.31)
majority -0.0866 (-2.53)*
leader 0.20759 (4.28)**
 chairman 0.0846 (3.23)**
member of key
legislative committee -0.064 (-1.79)
district rep 0.0214 (0.84)
age -0.0024065 (-0.41)
age squared 0.0000196 (0.37)
term 0.0531 (4.28)**
Intercept 3.49 21.40
R2 0.32
Adjusted R2 0.29

Note: Cell entries are regression coefficients with t values in parentheses.

* p<0.05
** p<0.1

Graph 1. Total Productivity and Legislative Effectiveness Ratings

Note: excluded the one observation on total productivity that measures greater than 600 (outlier) to see the
scatterplot comprehensively

Even though there exists a strong relationship between total productivity (joint measure
for bill authorship and coauthorship), I still want to test bill authorship and coauthorship
separately to find out which one/s really affect legislative effectiveness. As I have seen the
individual scatterplots (see graph 2 and 3 below), bill coauthorship does not seem to have a
significant effect on effectiveness ratings while bill authorship seem to have a very strong
positive relationship with effectiveness ratings.

Graph 2. Bill Coauthorship and Legislative Effectiveness Ratings

Note: excluded the one observation on bill coauthorship that measures greater than 500 (outlier)

Graph 3. Bill Authorship and Legislative Effectiveness Ratings

Note: excluded the one observation on bill authorship that measures greater than 300 (outlier )

Aiming to look at the relationship between bill coauthorship, bill authorship and
legislative effectiveness ratings, regression was again run.

Table 2. Regression Analysis of Perceived Legislative Effectiveness (Bill Coauthorship)

coauthor 0.0002146 (1.1)
female 0.02051 (0.96)
lawyer 0.06299 (2.47)**
businessman 0.0011708 (0.05)
majority -0.0903312 (-2.54)*
leader 0.2199292 (4.37)**
chairman 0.0956543 (3.52)**
member of key
legislative committee -0.0506723 (-1.35)
district rep 0.00493 (0.19)
age -0.00197 (-0.35)
age squared 0.0000139 (0.25)
term 0.04331 (3.31)**
Intercept 3.556657 21.00
R2 0.26
Adjusted R2 0.23
Note: Cell entries are regression coefficients with t values in parentheses.
* p<0.05
** p<0.1

Table 3. Regression Analysis of Perceived Legislative Effectiveness (Bill Authorship)

author 0.0020553 (8.14)**
female 0.0204 (1.05)
lawyer 0.0681332 (2.96)**
businessman 0.00725 (0.35)
majority -0.0814 (-2.54)*
leader 0.175 (3.83)**
chairman 0.0671 (2.72)**
member of key
legislative committee -0.0625 (-1.85)
district rep 0.05468 (2.22)*
age -0.002422 (-0.44)
age squared 0.0000214 (0.43)
term 0.04096 (3.62)**
Intercept 3.463 22.66
R2 0.40
Adjusted R2 0.37

Note: Cell entries are regression coefficients with t values in parentheses.

* p<0.05
** p<0.1

Unsuprisingly, bill coauthorship turned out to not have a significant relationship with
the legislative effectiveness ratings of the legislators. An explanation that I have gathered while
I was doing one of my interviews with the legislators, particularly Congressman Mark Go of
Baguio City who was also a professor of Political Science before he was the the president of
Berkeley School and a member of the board of trustee at Saint Louis University in Baguio City,
was that bill coauthorship is not likely to have a significant relationship with effectiveness
ratings because offices of legislators tend to just do RTRs (room-to-room visits) in every office
and ask for bill coauthorship. They are rather not picky on whomever they tap for bill
coauthorship and offices just wait on whoever responds to their coauthorship request.

Bill authorship, on the other hand, shows a very strong relationship with legislative
effectiveness ratings, perhaps because it is given prime importance by since it is one of the
major tasks of a legislator. Other variables are also consistent in having a relationship with
legislative effectiveness such as legislative leadership because, as a staff has explained to me
during my visit in the Batasang Pambansa Complex, it is mostly the legislators holding
leadership positions in the Congress even in committees who are actively speaking and
presiding at the plenary sessions and at the committee hearings.

CONCLUSION

The findings were actually was what I expected because as I have visited different
offices, I was able to gather some inside information from the staffs and from the legislators as
well about how they see “legislative effectiveness.” For some, a variable which has a strong
effect on legislative effectiveness is the legislative leadership since those who speak often,
participates often during plenary sessions and committee hearings are mostly the Speaker,
Majority Floor Leader, Minority Floor Leader, etc. Basically, they usually are those heard or
seen during meetings because of the fact that they are tasked to preside the meeting/session. The
same also goes for bill authorship, since they are the ones who introduced the bill, they get to
actively speak about it hence the strong relationship of it with legislative effectiveness. The
same also goes for committee chairmanship.

Being a lawyer is also consistent in having an effect on legislative effectiveness because

as what the literature review has discussed, lawyers are considered as belonging to a greater
political elite group. Terms served also has a significant relationship with legislative
effectiveness and the rationale for it is learning and experience. Second-termers and third-
termers surely have an advantage from first-termers as they already know and have learned how
to handle their responsibility in the Congress.

Bill coauthorship, unsurprisingly, does not have a correlation with legislative

effectiveness since as explained earlier, not much premium is given to coauthorship. As I
remember what a staff of Cong. Kaka Bag-ao has told me during my visit (non-verbatim),
“Kapag bill coauthorship, kung sino lang ang may gusto. Magbibigay kami ng kopya ng bill sa
lahat ng office pero konti lang din naman ang nagrerespond doon sa coauthorship request.”
Perhaps, it is not the best indicator for legislative productivity as the Congress does not take
coauthorship so seriously.
 What surprised me with the results is that being a member of the majority party actually
decreases a legislator’s level of effectiveness. Perhaps, I would recommend to do further
research on this using time series as I have nothing to compare it with.

I recommend for future research to include what I have not included in this paper which
are the indicators such as attendance and net worth. I think these variables may show a
significant relationship with legislative effectiveness. The arguments are that the more visible
you are in plenary sessions, the more effective you are perceived to be, and the richer you are,
the higher your level of effectiveness also. Regarding attendance, data can be accessed in the
Congressional Records section in the website of the Congress, however, the problem will be the
accountability of the data since, I have observed that during plenary sessions, most legislators
only attend when the roll call is already happening and immediately leaves after his or her name
is called. The idea of the attendance as another control variable was given by a staff of Cong.
Kaka Bag-ao as I visited the office and by Cong. Ted Montoro of AASENSO Partylist as he
was answering my survey, he told me that he was giving lower effectiveness scores to those he
wasn’t seeing during plenary sessions.

Another recommendation is to use legislative effectiveness ratings as independent

variable correlated to reelection chances and bill success.

Further research recommendation was suggested by another legislator and it is to view

the other aspect of being a legislator, which is to be a representative of their constituency. As I
have interviewed Cong. Eric Olivarez, who took Political Science at De La Salle University as
his undergraduate degree and is now an educator at his own school at the 1st district of
Parañaque, he told me that the effectiveness of a legislator cannot only be measured through his
job as a lawmaker at the Batasang Pambansa Complex because job of a legislator is two-fold
which includes representation also. By this, he meant that there are also many other activities
that a legislator does besides lawmaking. He gave an example for himself, which is his weekly
People Day during Fridays wherein he meets up with his constituents and listens to their
problems. He added that mostly, he spends his time in his district than in his office in the
Batasang Pambansa Complex because, for him, there are more work in his district than in the
Congress.
 To conclude, this paper assessed the relationship between legislative productivity and
legislative effectiveness. Here, the correlation between bill authorship and legislative
effectiveness was validated. Furthermore, certain characteristics were also proven to affect
legislative effectiveness strongly. So, particularly for the members of the HOR of the 17th
Congress of the Philippines, a legislator is effective if he or she: (1) has authored a great
number of bills, (2) is a lawyer by profession, (3) is a member of the minority, (4) has
committee chairmanship, (5) has a legislative leadership in the Congress, and (5) has more
experience in the aspect of terms served. However, given these facts, what do higher
effectiveness “buy” a legislator? Reelections? Bill success?
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APPENDIX A

LEGISLATIVE EFFECTIVENESS RATINGS

Please rate your co-legislators according to their degree of effectiveness during sessions, with 1 being not effective
and 5 being very effective.
DISTRICT REPRESENTATIVES Corazon Nuñez-Malanyaon
Abdullah Dimaporo Cristal Bagatsing
Abdulmunir Arbison Cristina Roa-Puno
Abraham Tolentino Dakila Carlo Cua
Aileen Radaza Dale Malapitan
Alberto Ungab Danilo Suarez
Alejandro Mirasol Deogracias Ramos, Jr.
Alex Advincula Deogracias Victor Savellano
Alexandria Gonzales Divina Grace Yu
Alfred Vargas Dulce Ann Hofer
Alfredo Benitez Edcel Lagman
Allen Jesse Mangaoang Edgar Erice
Amado Espino, Jr. Edgar Sarmiento
Ana Cristina Go Edwin Ongchuan
Angelina Tan Eileen Ermita-Buhain
Ansaruddin Adiong Eleanor Bulut-Begtang
Antonio Floirendo, Jr. Elisa Olga Kho
Arcadio Gorriceta Emmanuel Billones
Arlene Arcillas-Nazareno Emmanuel Madrona
Arnel Cerafica Eric Martinez
Arnulfo Fuentebella Eric Olivarez
Arnulfo Teves Eric Singson
Arthur Defensor, Jr. Erico Aristotle Aumentado
Arthur Yap Erlpe John Amante
Aurelio Gonzales, Jr. Estrelita Suansing
Aurora Enerio-Cerilles Evelina Escudero
Baby Aline Vargas-Alfonso Evelyn Plaza-Mellana
Bai Sandra Sema Federico Sandoval II
Bayani Fernando Feliciano Belmonte, Jr.
Bellaflor Angara-Castillo Ferdinand Hernandez
Ben Evardone Ferjenel Biron
Benhur Salimbangon Fernando Gonzalez
Benjamin Agarao, Jr. Florencio Flores, Jr.
Carlito Marquez Francis Gerald Abaya
Carlo Lopez Francisco Jose Matugas II
Carmelo Lazatin II Franz Alvarez
Celso Lobregat Fredenil Castro
Cesar Sarmiento Frederick Abueg
Charlie Cojuangco Frederick Siao
Cherry Deloso-Montalla Gabriel Bordado, Jr.
Christopher De Venecia Gavini Pancho

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Gerald Anthony Gullas, Jr. Lawrence Lemuel Fortun
Geraldine Roman Leo Rafael Cueva
Gil Acosta Leopoldo Bataoil
Glona Labadlabad Lianda Bolilia
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Linabelle Ruth Villarica
Greg Gasataya Lord Allan Jay Velasco
Gustavo Tambunting Lorna Bautista-Bandigan
Gwendolyn Garcia Lorna Silverio
Henedina Abad Lucy Torres-Gomez
Henry Oaminal Luis Campos, Jr.
Henry Ong Luis Ferrer IV
Horacio Suansing, Jr. Luis Raymund Villafuerte
Imelda Calixto-Rubiano Luisa Lloren Cuaresma
Imelda Marcos Magnolia Antonino-Nadres
Isagani Amatong Manuel Dalipe
Isidro Rodriguez, Jr. Manuel Luis Lopez
Jeffrey Khonghun Manuel Sagarbarria
Jennifer Barzaga Manuel Zubiri
Jerry Treñas Maria Carmen Zamora
Jesus Celeste Maria Lourdes Acosta-Alba
Jesus Sacdalan Maria Lourdes Aggabao
Joaquin Chipeco, Jr. Maria Lucille Nava
Jocelyn Limkaichong Maria Theresa Collantes
Joel Mayo Almario Maria Valentina Plaza
Joey Salceda Maria Vida Espinosa-Bravo
Johnny Pimentel Mario Vittorio Mariño
Jonas Cortes Marisol Panotes
Jorge Almonte Mark Go
Jorge Banal Marlyn Alonte-Naguiat
Jose Antonio Sy-Alvarado Marlyn Primicias-Agabas
Jose Carlos Cari Mauyag Papandayan, Jr.
Jose Christopher Belmonte Maximo Dalog
Jose Enrique Garcia III Maximo Rodriguez, Jr.
Jose Tejada Melecio Yap
Joseph Sto. Niño Bernos Mercedes Alvarez
Josephine Ramirez-Sato Mercedes Cagas
Juan Pablo Bondoc Micaela Violago
Juliet Marie Ferrer Michael John Duavit
Juliette Uy Milagrosa Tan
Kaka Bag-ao Miro Quimbo
Karlo Nograles Mohamad Khalid Dimaporo

30
Monsour Del Rosario Rosemarie Arenas
Mylene Garcia-Albano Rosenda Ann Ocampo
Nancy Catamco Roy Loyola
Napoleon Dy Ruby Sahali
Noel Villanueva Ruffy Biazon
Oscar Garin, Jr. Ruwel Peter Gonzaga
Pablo Ortega Salvio Fortuno
Pantaleon Alvarez Sandra Eriguel
Paolo Everardo Javier Scott Davies Lanete
Paulino Salvador Leachon Seth Frederick Jalosjos
Pedro Acharon, Jr. Sol Aragones
Peter John Calderon Strike Revilla
Peter Unabia Teodoro Baguilat, Jr.
Pia Cayetano Toby Tiangco
Prospero Pichay, Jr. Trina Enverga
Ramon Durano VI Vicente Alcala
Ramon Nolasco Vicente Veloso
Ramon Vicente Rocamora Victor Yap
Randolph Ting Vilma Santos-Recto
Raneo Abu Vincent Crisologo
Raul Daza Weslie Gatchalian
Raul del Mar Wilfredo Caminero
Raul Tupas Wilter Palma II
Renato Unico, Jr. Winston Castelo
Rene Relampagos Xavier Jesus Romualdo
Reynaldo Umali Yedda Romualdez
Richard Eusebio Yul Servo
Robert Ace Barbers Zajid Mangudadatu
Rodolfo Albano III Edward Maceda
Rodolfo Fariñas Florida Robes
Rodrigo Abellanosa Suharto Mangudadatu
Rogelio Espina PARTYLIST
REPRESENTATIVES
Rogelio Neil Roque
Abigail Faye Ferriol-Pascual
Rogelio Pacquiao
Alfredo Garbin, Jr.
Roger Mercado
Aniceto Bertiz III
Rolando Andaya, Jr.
Anna Marie Villaraza-Suarez
Rolando Uy
Anthony Bravo
Romeo Acop
Antonio Tinio
Ronald Cosalan
Ariel Casilao
Ronaldo Zamora
Arlene Brosas
Rosanna Vergara
Arnel Ty

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Benhur Lopez, Jr. Mariano Michael Velarde, Jr.
Bernadette Herrera-Dy Mark Aeron Sambar
Carlos Isagani Zarate Michael Romero
Carlos Roman Uybarreta Michaelina Antonio
Cecilia Leonila Chavez Orestes Salon
Christopher Co Raymond Democrito Mendoza
Conrado Estrella III Ricardo Belmonte, Jr.
Delphine Lee Rico Geron
Dennis Laogan Rodante Marcoleta
Emmeline Aglipay-Villar Rodel Batocabe
Emmi de Jesus Ron Salo
Enrico Pineda Sabiniano Canama
Eugene Michael De Vera Salvador Belaro, Jr.
Francisca Castro Sarah Jane Elago
Gary Alejano Sharon Garin
Harlin Neil Abayon III Shernee Tan
Harry Roque Sherwin Tugna
Jericho Jonas Nograles Sitti Turabin-Hataman
Jesulito Manalo Teodoro Montoro
Jose Panganiban, Jr. Tomasito Villarin
Joseph Stephen Paduano Tricia Nicole Velasco-Catera
Julieta Cortuna Victoria Isabel Noel
Lito Atienza Vini Nola Ortega
Makmod Mending, Jr. Virgilio Lacson

32
APPENDIX B

INFORMED CONSENT FORM

Good day! My name is Bea Czarina Navarro, a bona fide student of the University of the
Philippines Diliman taking up a bachelor’s degree in Political Science. As part of being a
student in Political Science, I am currently taking up a Political Science elective, namely
Polsc 199, which is mainly about the quantitative research methods in Political Science.
To finish the aforementioned course, we are tasked to create a research paper on our
chosen topic.

I have chosen to do a paper regarding the legislative effectiveness and productivity of the
17th Congress of the Philippines. In line with that, I will be conducting a survey or
interview with the members of the said Congress.

Please be advised that this survey or interview will take around 30 minutes of your time.
Also, your participation in this study is voluntary and that you may withdraw from the
study at any point without penalty. All information in this study will remain confidential.
Your name may or may not be used in this study if you choose to preserve your
anonymity. Adequate safeguards will be used to maintain the privacy and confidentiality
of all information you provide.

I will be on hand to answer any questions about the study before you agree to participate.
You will also be given a copy of this form to keep. Should you have any questions after
the conduct of the study, you may contact me at +6977 103 5739 and/or
ebanirazc@yahoo.com.ph.

If you agree to participate in the study, please sign and date the form below in the spaces
provided.

________________________________
Signature over Printed Name and Date

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