Given a breather from working on Charter change (Cha-cha) with Malacañang’s creation of a consultative committee to draft proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution, Senate and House leaders are now expected to line up their own list of priority bills for plenary approval before Congress adjourns for its next recess during the Holy week break.
Senate Majority Leader Vicente C. Sotto III, however, gave assurances that no bill seeking imposition of higher taxes to raise more revenues eyed to bankroll the “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure program of the Duterte administration is on the table, as yet.
“Wala pa [none yet],” Sotto told the BusinessMirror.
Sotto made the clarification |when asked if any new revenue measure or appropriation bill—supposed to emanate from the House of Representatives—is rife for Senate plenary approval.
The Senate majority leader confirmed that what is on their priority list is the pending bill embodying the Bangsamoro basic law, an awaited legislative measure that will operationalize the road map for peace between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
He added that, also on this list are the anti-hazing bill and the proposed overseas Filipino workers Handbook bill, among other pending measures earlier endorsed by various committees for Senate plenary consideration.
The proposed amendments to the existing anti-hazing law was filed by Sen. Sherwin T. Gatchalian following what he described as the “gruesome murder” of University of Santo Tomas freshman law student Atio Castillo during fraternity initiation rites.
Gatchalian said he is enlisting support of fellow senators to speed up passage of the measure to impose stiffer penalties in a bid to effectively avert deadly hazing practices among student fraternities.
The senator confirmed he is keen on seeing the urgent passage of the remedial measure to avert “further bloodshed” in what has turned out to be deadly fraternity hazing rites.
In sponsoring the amending bill for early approval, Gatchalian admitted having “a sad sense of déjà vu,” lamenting that “history has repeated itself once more.”
“Yet another innocent and promising young man, Atio Castillo, has lost his life during brutal hazing rites conducted by his fraternity brothers-to-be, and the people demand action from their representatives in Congress,” he said.
Gatchalian recalled his experience as a Valenzuela congressman back in 2014, when he learned about the murder of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde student Guillo Servando during initiation rites conducted by the Tau Gamma Phi Fraternity, which, he said, “shocked the nation.”
Gatchalian added that the case prompted him to file an anti-hazing measure embodied in House Bill 5760 that the House of Representatives passed on third and final reading, but which the Senate then failed to pass during the 16th Congress.
He, however, noted that the House of Representatives of the 17th Congress already approved proposed amendments to the anti-hazing law of 1995 (Republic Act 8049) earlier this week, adding that approval of the measure into law now rests on the Senate anew.
Gatchalian admitted that he is lobbying hard for “speedy passage” of the Anti-Hazing Act of 2018 to finally plug close “loopholes” in the 23-year-old anti-hazing law.
He added that Senate probers themselves uncovered the loopholes during their recent inquiry into the hazing death of Castillo. Gatchalian cited the need to include provisions in the remedial legislation to establish “clear-cut responsibilities and liabilities of educational institutions in preventing and policing hazing.”
He asserted the importance of adding provisions that would “severely punish resident and alumni members of fraternities who would dare attempt to frustrate the ends of justice by covering up the hazing crimes committed by their brothers.”
The senator added that, more important, the remedial legislation is expected to introduce “changes [in] the central paradigm of the law—instead of regulating hazing, it will completely prohibit all forms of hazing, once and for all.”