AS sessions adjourned for the Holy Week recess, House leaders on Wednesday said they have already approved 23 of 31 important pieces of legislation identified by the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC).
Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez said these measures were already transmitted to the Senate for its own deliberations.
The 31 LEDAC priority measures, collectively called the Common Legislative Agenda (CLA) of Malacañang, Senate, and the House of Representatives, were drawn up from dozens of measures that were filed in Congress to further stimulate economic activities, create job opportunities, reduce poverty, and provide better health-care services for Filipinos.
The Congress went on a break from March 22 to May 7, 2023.
Romualdez, in a statement, said out of the 23 measures approved by the House, two had been signed into law by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., while the remaining eight bills in the LEDAC priority list are in the advance stages of deliberation.
“We have done our share in passing important pieces of legislation that will help the country recover from the crippling impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and external shocks that adversely affect the economy and the nation,” he said.
“That was our commitment during the series of meetings at LEDAC. That is our continuing commitment to the Filipino people,” the House leader pointed out.
Aside from having been identified by the LEDAC as priority measures, the approved bills were also among those enumerated by the President in his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July last year, Romualdez said.
“We have responded positively to the President’s call for legislation that would hasten the country’s recovery from the pandemic, sustain our economic growth, and implement his Agenda for Prosperity,” the Speaker added.
The two bills the President has signed into law are the mobile phone SIM (subscriber information module) Registration Act, which is now under implementation, and the measure postponing the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections to October this year.
The 20 other LEDAC-endorsed bills approved on third and final reading by the House of Representatives are: Magna Carta of Seafarers, E-Governance Act / E-Government Act, Negros Island Region, Virology Institute of the Philippines, Passive Income and Financial Intermediary Taxation Act, National Disease Prevention Management Authority or Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Medical Reserve Corps, Philippine Passport Act; Internet Transaction Act / E-Commerce Law, Waste-to-Energy Bill, Free Legal Assistance for Police and Soldiers, Apprenticeship Act, Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) Law, Magna Carta of Barangay Health Workers, Valuation Reform, Eastern Visayas Development Authority, Leyte Ecological Industrial Zone, Government Financial Institutions Unified Initiatives to Distressed Enterprises for Economic Recovery, National Citizens Service Training Program, and Rightsizing the National Government.
Another LEDAC bill, the Agrarian Reform Debts Condonation is now for bicameral conference committee approval.
The eight other LEDAC bills pending in the House are the: Regional Specialty Hospitals (for second reading approval), Enabling Law for the Natural Gas Industry (under technical working group or TWG deliberation), National Land Use Act (TWG); Department of Water Resources and Services and Creation of Water Regulatory Commission (TWG), Electric Power Industry Reform Act (for committee deliberation), Budget Modernization (for committee deliberation), National Defense Act (for committee deliberation), and Unified System of Separation, Retirement and Pension for Uniformed Personnel (also for committee deliberation).
“We are working double time to pass the remaining eight LEDAC measures and our own priority bills. We are confident of approving them on third and final reading before the sine die break,” Romualdez said.