Date Presented:

11 April

Abstract:

One of the contentious phases in the formulation of a legislation is the period of interpellations. In this stage of the law-making process, proposed bills are scrutinized and revised by congressional actors, as each puts forward her/his respective ideas, interjections and/or expressions of support. As an institutional procedure, the period of interpellations is the stage where the dynamics of contention and compromise become evident through the interaction of the policy positions of lawmakers regarding the specific policy dimensions and issues which a certain bill raises.Policy positions require narratives that embody ideas, rationalizations and justifications of a dissenting or preferred stance towards issues. Needless to say, raising these during the committee and floor debates of a congressional body reflects how these positions are deemed important by policy actors. Suffice it to say that in the period of interpellations, multiple narratives interact in a discursive space where an ideas, concept and argument is either refuted and filtered out from a proposed bill, or is sustained enough to be authorized into a legislation. Interestingly, therefore, one may argue that any legislation represents a composite of narratives that have “survived” such a contentious condition. In this context, the proposed paper will discuss the rationalization of renewable energy in the Philippines, focusing on the policy positions and narratives which animated the formulation of the Renewable Energy Act of 2008 (R.A. 9513) at the level of the Philippine Senate. It is argued that the emergence of contending policy positions is brought about by a priori "conditions of contentiousness" vis-a-vis how decision-makers view issues within policy dimensions. Utilizing mixed method conversation analysis of the documented floor debates during the period of interpellation, the paper will identify and discuss the policy dimensions and the issues of contention among decision-makers. The paper will also map the relationship and dynamics of these policy positions based on the substance and manner by which they were framed, argued and rationalized. Finally, the results of the analysis will be used to gather insights that explain the dominant and prevailing discourse(s) which serve as the foundation of this piece of legislation.