Febriamy Hutapea & Ismira Lutfia – After passing a record four bills on Monday, the House of Representatives repeated the feat on Tuesday, despite the continuing poor attendance of lawmakers in the plenary session.

The House, also known as the DPR, endorsed the bills back-to-back – on fisheries, youth, special economic zones and postal services – in an obvious attempt to meet its ambitious target of endorsing 22 bills within three weeks before its tenure officially ends on Oct. 1.

The House predicted that with a series of consecutive plenary sessions during its 16 working days left, it would be able to complete about 200 bills when its tenure ends.

Under the National Legislation Program, also known as Prolegnas, the House was set to manage 284 bills. However, their target was not backed by their will, with Tuesday's plenary session attended by a few lawmakers, less than 50 out of the total of 550.

The attendance sheet in the morning showed the signature of about 260 lawmakers, increasing those present to around 300 in the afternoon, though only a few actually stayed inside the plenary room for the entire session.

Sebastian Salang, the coordinator of Forum of Citizens Concerned About the Indonesian Legislature, also known as Formappi, said the House was seriously violating its own ethics.

"This is a manipulation. They do whatever it takes to meet their legislation target. It's so embarrassing," Sebastian said, adding that such moves were prone to a challenge in the Constitutional Court.

Sebastian said he hoped the next House would not be trapped by its own target. "The matter is not how many bills they pass, but how far they solve the nation's problems by settling it through the law."

However, House Speaker Agung Laksono said the signature was enough as the earnest discussions on the bills were held at the commission level and the plenary session was only held to officially endorse them.

"All the requirements were met. This can be verified with the secretary general. There was a quorum based on the signatures," Agung said.

The newly-passed law on postal services put an end to PT Pos Indonesia's monopoly as the country's single postal service operator and paved the way for market-driven postal services, Communication and Information Technology Minister Mohammad Nuh told the legislators.

"The law on postal services also stipulates the government's obligation to provide universal postal services in cooperation with local and international postal service operators," Nuh said, adding that the combined efforts would ensure a seamless connection in mailing and shipping all over the country.

However, he said that foreign postal services could only operate in provincial capitals that had international airports or seaports.