House Majority Leader Martin Romualdez of Leyte has said he is optimistic that the House of Representatives will approve “in record time” about a third of the 26 priority measures outlined by President Rodrigo Duterte in his 2019 State of the Nation Address.
“In compliance with the Speaker’s directive to hit the ground running, I met House Secretariat officials involved in the committee and plenary deliberations of bills already filed. We discussed ways on how to expedite the approval of pending legislative measures from the committee level to plenary,” Romualdez said.
“With the innovations that we are planning to implement in committee deliberations, I am optimistic that we can approve about a dozen of the President’s priority measures in record time. Hopefully, the committee reports on these measures will be out for plenary deliberations by the first week of August,” Romualdez said.
These measures, he said, include the National Land Act; Department of Disaster Resilience; Coconut Levy Fund; TRABAHO bill; Alcohol taxes; Property valuation; Capital Income Tax; Mandatory ROTC for Grades 11 and 12; Government rightsizing bill; Energizing Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises; National Transport Act; and Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Of these measures, Romualdez said only the National Transport Act and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were not specifically mentioned by President Duterte in his 2019 SONA. These, however, were among the priority measures specified by the President in his 2018 SONA.
Romualdez said all these measures are expected to face easy sailing in the committee deliberations as these were already approved by the House of Representatives in the 17th Congress.
The Leyte solon noted that Section 48 of the House rules provide that: “In case of bills or resolutions that are identified as priority measures of the House, which were previously filed in the immediately preceding Congress and have already been approved on 3rd reading, the same maybe disposed of as matters already reported upon the approval of majority of the Members of the committee present, there being a quorum.”
“Once constituted, the committees responsible for these measures may meet for just one session and immediately refer the committee reports for plenary deliberation. This is possible if they invoke Section 48 of the House rules,” Romualdez explained.
“After plenary deliberations, the House may even pull a surprise and approve these measures on third reading by the last week of August or early September,” he added.
Other priority measures outlined by the President in his 2019 SONA were: suspension of excise tax on fuel; new salary standardization law; additional benefits for solo parents; health workers in all barangays; expansion of Malasakit Centers; postponement of barangay and SK elections to October 2022; Magna Carta for Barangays; Department of Overseas Filipinos; Department of Water Resources and Water Regulatory Commission; Fire Protection Modernization Program; National Defense Act; Uniformed Personnel Separation Retirement Pension Bill; National Academy of Sports for High School Students; amendments to Land Bank charter; and development of renewable energy sources.
“Both Speaker Cayetano and I gave the commitment that we are going to work double time. I am elated that the newly-elected Minority Leader, Pastor Benny Abante, shares the same view. With this shared commitment, I have no doubt that this will be one of the most productive Congress ever,” said Romualdez, president of the Lakas Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas CMD) and the Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa).