INCOMING Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said Wednesday the Legislative-Executive Advisory Council will meet regularly in the coming 17th Congress.
Outgoing President Benigno Aquino III convened the Ledac only twice since he assumed office in 2010: on Feb. 28, 2011, and on Aug. 16, 2011.
The council was conceived during the Ramos administration.
“We will push for a regular Ledac to ensure the successful passage of priority measures for our people,” said Alvarez, the representative of Davao del Norte and secretary-general of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan.
Alvarez recalled having attended regular Ledac meetings during the Ramos administration.
“The Ledac during the Ramos administration was at its most active, and that is important because it guides both the executive and the legislative for a clearer direction of the government’s socio-economic development goals,” Alvarez said.
He said he was pushing for regular Ledac meetings to preserve the intent and spirit of Republic Act 7640, which provides that the council meet at least once every quarter.
Outgoing Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. was himself disappointed over the Aquino administration’s failure to convene the Ledac regularly as prescribed by law.
“I think he should have convened it more often, so that we could be more in tune with his thinking,” Belmonte said.
“There are bills that are very good but which we have passed but it turns out they were not in his thinking, not in the liking of his economic managers. More Ledac meetings would have probably solved that.”
Belmonte said Aquino’s penchant for vetoing several bills of national importance could have been prevented if the leaders of Congress and Malacañang had met regularly under Ledac.
But because there were no Ledac meetings, the House and the Senate took the initiative of passing several pieces of important legislation that ended up being vetoed by Aquino.