Parliamentary horse-trading

Backers of RH bill vow to block Charter change attempt

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman will lead more than 130 lawmakers in holding the Cha-cha and text tax measures hostage until the House of Representatives tackles the reproductive health bill which, he pointed out, had been languishing in Congress for over a decade.

The reproductive health bill, which requires the government to promote natural and artificial birth control methods, is not on Speaker Prospero Nograles’s list of priority measures to be taken up in the last nine session days of Congress....

If the Con-con measure and other major bills on the House agenda are taken up on the floor, Lagman said he would either question the quorum or keep up an interpellation of its sponsor to prevent the measure from being put to a vote.

“If they do not consider [the RH bill] and vote for it, no Con-con or tax measure will be passed … if it has no chance, then the other measures will have no chance. All of us will just have no chance,” he told reporters at the Serye news forum on Thursday.
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I'd say parliamentary horse-trading if ever there was one, and one side seems bent on trading an ass for an entire stable of horses.

Dirty tactics, anyone?