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Friday, March 29, 2024

Speaker cites House’s success in passing important measures

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Speaker Martin G. Romualdez on Friday cited the accomplishments of the House of Representatives in the first five months of the 19th Congress, including the approval of the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) to boost economic development and the passage of 19 priority bills.

In his remarks before the legislature started its Christmas recess Thursday, Romualdez said President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., in his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July, identified 19 priority measures for the 19th Congress to consider and approve.

“In just about five months, we have approved on third and final reading 10 of these measures. In addition, 37 other national bills and 128 local bills were likewise approved on third and final reading,” Romualdez said.

“This Maharlika bill is our response to the need for a more efficient, steady and reliable growth of the nation’s coffers, using well-thought of investment gains that will ultimately redound to the benefit of the Filipino people,” Romualdez said.

He said lawmakers exhaustively deliberated on the bill “in a bid to resuscitate our pandemic-battered economy.”

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Romualdez noted that public consultations and extensive deliberations with agencies and stakeholders were conducted by House committees on banks and financial intermediaries, ways and means, and appropriations, while in plenary, several interpellators and numerous hours of session were devoted to “informative debates and manifestations discussing lengthily the nature, scope, and benefits of the proposed measure.”

The House leader said the MIF bill was authored by 282 members of the chamber and said the creation and use of a sovereign wealth fund “has been tried and tested in both first world and developing economies.”

Romualdez said the House looks forward to the enactment of several other priority bills it has passed on third and final reading that were part of the Common Legislative Agenda (CLA) of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC).

These include the National Disease Prevention Management Authority or Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Medical Reserve Corps (HEART), Agrarian Reform Debts Condonation, Philippine Passport Act, Internet Transaction Act / E-Commerce Law, Waste-to-Energy Bill, Free Legal Assistance for Police and Soldiers, Apprenticeship Act, Public–Private Partnership (PPP) Act, Magna Carta of Barangay Health Workers, Valuation Reform Bill (Package 3), Eastern Visayas Development Authority (EVDA), and the Leyte Ecological Industrial Zone.

Last week, the House approved two other measures included in the CLA, namely the Virology Institute of the Philippines, and the Passive Income and Financial Intermediary Taxation Act (PIFITA), which is the fourth package under the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP).

On Thursday, the House of Representatives approved on third and final reading the Government Financial Institutions Unified Initiatives to Distressed Enterprises for Economic Recovery (GUIDE) bill and National Citizens Service Training Program (NCSTP), both measures under the CLA.

The House of Representatives also approved on third and final reading HB 6517 is titled, “An Act further strengthening professionalism and promoting the continuity of policies and modernization initiatives in the Armed Forces of the Philippines”, which seeks changes in the fixed tour of duty of key AFP officers.

The two that have been signed into law by the President are the mobile phone Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) Registration Act and the bill resetting the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections, originally scheduled for this month, to October 2023.

Romualdez said the House passed the proposed P5.268-trillion 2023 national budget in September.

During its first meeting last Oct. 10, Romualdez said the LEDAC added 12 more to the 19 SONA measures, for a total of 31 priority pieces of legislation.

Of the 31, two have been enacted into law, 17 have been approved on third and final reading, and the rest are in the advanced stages of deliberation in various committees, Romualdez added.

The speaker said the SIM card registration law “is envisioned as an effective tool to protect the people from spurious, untraceable text messages, spam messages, fraudulent messages and breach of data privacy.”

He said the numerous priority bills passed into law and approved on third and final reading “speak volumes about the outstanding dynamics of this Congress which we have all worked hard for.”

“These measures are calculated to alleviate poverty, trigger economic progress, and harness competencies in government for the delivery of no less than the highest degree of service to the Filipino people,” Romualdez said.

He thanked members and other leaders of the House for their “cooperation and support” in the accomplishment of the chamber’s legislative goals, including Senior Deputy Speaker and former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Deputy Speakers Isidro Ungab, Roberto Puno, Kristine Singson-Meehan, Camille Villar, Democrito Mendoza, Ralph Recto, Aurelio Gonzales Jr., and Vicente Franco Frasco, Majority Leader Manuel Jose Dalipe, and Senior Deputy Majority Leader Ferdinand Alexander Marcos.

He also expressed his gratitude to Minority Leader Marcelino Libanan, appropriations committee chairman Elizaldy Co of Ako Bicol, his senior vice chairperson Stella Luz Quimbo of Marikina, ways and means committee chairman Joey Salceda of Albay, and Accounts committee chairperson Yedda Marie Romualdez of Tingog Party-list.

The Speaker also thanked all committee chairmen and the chamber’s secretariat.

House Majority Leader and Zamboanga City 2nd District Rep. Manuel Jose M. Dalipe said a total of 5,696 measures were filed in the House of Representatives, 5226 were bills, 470 were resolutions and 63 were committee reports.

Dalipe said the institution approved 37 bills on third and final reading, passed 11 measures on 2nd reading and adopted 20 resolutions, including Concurrent Resolution 2, which supported the 2022-2028 Medium Term Fiscal Framework of the Marcos administration.

Some 427 measures were processed, which was 96 percent higher than the 218 measures processed in the 18th Congress.

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