Malacañang on Monday said Congress has committed to passing 10 priority measures of the Marcos administration by June 2, including the controversial Maharlika Investment Fund.
The priority bills were tackled during the executive committee meeting of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC), which serves as a consultative and advisory body to the President.
Among the priority measures to be passed at the end of the first regular session are the amendments to the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) Law/Public-Private Partnership (PPP) bill, bills to create the Medical Reserve Corps, the Philippine Center for Disease Prevention and Control, and the Virology Institute of the Philippines; and a measure reinstating mandatory Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) and National Service Training Program (NSTP).
The Condonation of Unpaid Amortization and Interests of Loans of Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs), Internet Transactions Act/E-Commerce Law, the Attrition bill, the Armed Forces of the Philippines Fixed Terms, and the Salt Industry Development Bill are also among the top measures slated for passage this June.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. earlier enumerated the priority bills in his 2022 State of the Nation Address (SONA), saying they are essential to the administration’s plans and programs for the country, particularly the eight-point socioeconomic agenda.
Last month, Mr. Marcos discussed at least seven priority measures—including the ratification of a regional trade pact—in a meeting with the top leaders of Congress.
The LEDAC meeting yesterday was presided over by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin at the Premier Guest House in Malacañang Palace.
Also present were LEDAC members Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri and House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez—who met with Mr. Marcos late in January—and Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan.
The Palace also noted the LEDAC’s commitment to push for the ratification of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) free trade deal.
In meeting the Senate President and House Speaker last month, Mr. Marcos underscored the importance of ratifying the RCEP, a free trade agreement among the Asia-Pacific nations of Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Zubiri said the proposed Maharlika Investment Fund was also raised in that meeting, and the President agreed there is no need to rush its passage.
In the LEDAC meeting, Zubiri and Senator Loren Legarda expressed their commitment to jointly defend the ratification of RCEP on the Senate floor.
Zubiri said that RCEP was the “talk of the town” during the Philippine delegation’s meetings with government and business leaders in Tokyo.
President Marcos on Sunday said that the RCEP would be good for the country because of the increased trade that it will bring to different member economies.
The Philippines is the only country among its Southeast Asian neighbors that has not ratified the RCEP.
The Senate has been deliberating on RCEP with hearings currently at the sub-committee level.
Senator Francis Escudero on Monday said the RCEP was not a “red carpet to big markets” such as China, Japan, Australia, and ASEAN.
Escudero said it was wrong to market the trade pact as some sort of miracle fertilizer that would make Philippine agriculture bloom.
Touted by the administration as the “world’s biggest free trade deal,” the RCEP could make Filipino farmers the biggest losers if it over-promises but underdelivers, as previous treaties have done in the past, the senator said.
To get the full benefits of RCEP, should the Senate ratify it, Escudero said the government should urgently channel the much-needed financing to the beleaguered farm sector.
“If government is raising capital for the Maharlika Investment Fund which can be invested abroad, then why can’t it package financing for a critical domestic sector?” he said.
Furthermore, he warned that RCEP could end up for farmers as another Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) or a World Trade Organization (WTO) treaty, the potential of which was not maximized and whose drawbacks were not contained.
He proposed that the administration, which has gone on a full-court press to have the RCEP ratified by the Senate, should package a companion measure that will help Philippine agriculture take advantage of RCEP’s benefits and cushion its harmful effects.
He also said that “RCEF or not,” the government should be investing more funds into agriculture to arrest declining production, tame expensive inputs and improve farmer incomes.
“The best trade deal for farmers is not those that have fancy acronyms but one that would result in farm-level improvements—from new irrigation to good but affordable seeds and fertilizers,” he said.
In a separate development, leftist lawmakers have asked the Supreme Court to declare as unconstitutional the approval by the House of Representatives of the Maharlika Investment Fund bill on third reading.
In their petition, the lawmakers from the Makabayan bloc also sought the nullification of the certification of urgency issued by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on House Bill No. 6608.
The petitioners – Bayan Muna Chairman Neri Colmenares, former Bayan Muna representative Carlos Isagani Zarate, ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. France Castro, Gabriel Women’s Party Rep. Arlene Brosas and Kabataan Partylist Rep. Raoul Danniel Manuel – said they do not question the legality of the plan to create the MIF, but the violation of the constitutional requirements for issuing a presidential certification of urgency for the passage of a proposed law.
“The practice of requesting for and issuing a presidential certification on urgency for ‘public emergency or calamity’ must be tempered as it distorts the requirements and processes imposed by the 1987 Constitution and its framers for the passage of a law.”
“It is hoped that the Honorable Court, through herein petition, will issue some guidelines necessary to ensure that the same will not be abused in the future and by future administrations,” the petitioners said.
Article VI, Section 26 (2) states that “no bill passed by either House shall become a law unless it has passed three readings on separate days, and printed copies thereof in its final form have been distributed to its members three days before its passage, except when the President certifies to the necessity of its immediate enactment to meet a public calamity or emergency.”
The petitioners ascribed grave abuse of discretion on the part of President Marcos’ exercise of presidential power under the constitutional provision despite the absence of public calamity or emergency.
The petitioners also asserted that the House of Representatives committed grave abuse of discretion when it approved the Maharlika Bill on third reading without complying with the constitutional requirements under Article VI, Section 26 (2).
They pointed out the absence of the same certification for the Maharlika Investment Fund bill version in the Senate or Senate Bill No. 1670 only proves the lack of public calamity and emergency that the certification was supposed to address.
“By its nature, a presidential certification of urgency short-circuits the normal processes in Congress in terms of law-making. As such the presidential power must only be used when there is an actual ‘public calamity or emergency’,” the petitioners said.