Albay 2nd district Rep. Jose “Joey” Sarte Salceda expressed confidence Tuesday that bill creating the Bulacan Ecozone will soon be passed into law, saying the House is eyeing to adopt the Senate version of the said legislation.
He said a bicameral discussion on the said measure is no longer necessary since the Senate already made a “good version.”
“The Senate version is completely fine with me. I recommended to chairman Valmayor and the House leadership that we concur with the Senate version,” Salceda said.
“The sooner we could send this to the President for his signature, the better,” he added.
Salceda said he is hopeful the current version of the legislation creating the Bulacan Special Economic Zone and Freeport (BuZ) will finally be passed into law since it already addressed the concerns raised by President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.
The Senate passed on third and final reading Senate Bill 2572 establishing the BuZ last Monday.
“Of course, it’s all up to PBBM, but this time around, I don’t think there will be a veto,” Salceda said.
In 2022, Marcos vetoed the bill, which would establish the ecozone, then called the Bulacan Airport City Special Economic Zone and Freeport (BACSEZF) due to its “defective” provisions.
Among the issues raised by the President on the said legislation was the exemption of the ecozone from the jurisdiction of the Commission on Audit; its lack of procedures for the expropriation of lands awarded to agrarian reform beneficiaries as well as a master plan for the specific metes and bounds of the economic zone; and for giving “blanket powers to the BACSEZF authority for managing its technical airport operations.”
“At the instruction of the leadership, we cured the issues of President Marcos’ earlier veto of the original proposal,” Salceda said.
The BuZ will be largest ecozone in the country, surrounding Bulacan Airport. It is expected to generate 1.2 million jobs and bring in at least P37.84 billion worth of investments.