With three more weeks of session days before a new president is sworn into office, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said Congress may still be able to enact the 4Ps Institutionalization Bill and the Coco Levy Bill into law.
“Call it midnight laws or whatever. The fact remains that we, in Congress, can work overtime if need be, just to ensure the passage of the bills on 4Ps and Coco Levy,” the senator said.
Recto said the key here is for presidential and vice presidential candidates to stand united on these issues and marshal their forces in Congress for the timely enactment of the twin measures.
He proposed that legislative members who are gunning for the top two positions in government can be co-sponsors of the two landmark pieces of social legislation.
He said “there is still time to pass the two bills before the curtains fall on this Congress.”
“And all the actors in the presidential and VP race are either members of the Senate or the House, or have kin in the Senate, or have a senator as running mate,” Recto said.
Presidential candidates Grace Poe and Miriam Defensor Santiago are incumbent senators while Vice President Jojo Binay’s daughter, Nancy is a sitting senator like Alan Peter Cayetano, running mate of Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.
In addition to Cayetano, four other vice presidential aspirants are members of the Senate club: Gregorio Honasan, of Binay’s UNA party; Chiz Escudero, who teamed up with Poe; Bongbong Marcos, running mate of Santiago; and independent candidate Antonio Trillanes IV, who is supporting Poe.
The sole member of the House in the VP field is Leni Robredo of the Liberal Party.
“Leni is the representative of Mar. Binay has two representatives—Gringo and Nancy, while Digong can be ably represented by Alan Peter, who is our Majority Floor Leader,” Recto said.
Recto said the two measures can be approved during the three-week post-election window.
Both houses of Congress will reconvene on May 23 for a three-week session that will end on June 10, or 20 days before the new president takes office.
Though dismissed as a lameduck session, Recto would rather call it “a time to create a legacy.”
While work in the three weeks include canvassing the returns and proclaiming the presidential and vice presidential winners, there is time to cinch approval for the measures, Recto insisted.
Recto said institutionalizing the CCT is on the final stretch of committee deliberation.
Recto said the Department of Social Welfare and Development Secretary Corazon Juliano Soliman has requested Malacañang to officially back the measure, a move that will speed up its approval.
On the coco levy measure, Recto explained that the consolidated bill he and Senator Cynthia Villar authored was about to be approved on second reading when Malacañang suddenly issued twin orders governing its use in March last year.
Executive Order 179 provided for the inventory, privatization and transfer of coco levy assets in favor of government while Executive Order 180 mandated the transfer of the funds to government for an “Integrated Coconut Industry Roadmap Program.”
However, in May last year, the SC, acting on a farmers’ group plea, issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) stopping their implementation.
“Thirty years have passed and the farmers are still waiting for the money, the fund is still frozen, and the implementation of the executive orders mandating its use has been stopped by the courts,” Recto said.