Batasang Pambansa

From Freepedia

Batasang Pambansa ("National Assembly") is where members of the Philippines House of Representatives hold their sessions. Comprising 218 elected members and 12 presidential appointees, the legislators debate economic, social and other issues. The Batasang Pambansa is located in Batasan Road, Batasan Hills, Quezon City.

Martial Law was declared by President Ferdinand Marcos on September 23, 1972. He imposed a curfew, banned public assemblies, silenced the free press, outlawed protest movements, arrested opposition politicians, dissolved the bicameral Congress and created "citizen's" or "barangay" assemblies to ratify his decrees. Beginning in 1978, he began to implement the provisions of the 1973 Constitution, including the organization of an Interim Batasang Pambansa, roughly translated as "National Assembly." In 1981, the semi-parliament was formally convened as the "Batasang Pambansa."

The Batasang Pambansa complex itself was begun in the 1950's following the naming of Quezon City as the new capital. However, due to lack of funding, only the foundation was initially completed, and the complex was not completed until the 1970's under the Marcos Administration to house the Batasang Pambansa, a unicameral parliament. However, under the 1987 Constitution, the legislative branch again became bicameral. The numerically larger House of Representatives retained the Great Hall and the offices of the old Batasang Pambansa on the grounds of the complex. The smaller reinstated Senate returned to the original Legislative building in Manila until the complex was turned over to the National Museum of the Philippines under the Ramos Administration, and has since moved to the GSIS building on reclaimed land on Manila Bay in Manila.

Batasan Road, the road on which the walled and heavily guarded complex lies, is lined with squatter dwellings, a telling sign of the little progress made within the complex's walls.