In a sea of House measures reaching almost 7,500, a number of bills stood out and gained public attention due to their “peculiarity”.
While the majority of these measures have national significance, there are distinct bills that never fail to draw the curiosity of people.
PRRD Day!
For instance, Rep. Florida Robes of San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, is pushing for the passage of House Bill (HB) 5377 declaring March 28 of every year as a special working holiday to celebrate the “President Rodrigo Roa Duterte Day”.
In justifying her bill, Robes said the country should commemorate the “true Philippine reforms, reunification and development in our nation.”
According to Robes, President Duterte now serves as the hope and inspiration of the Filipino people, “In his historic election as president of the Philippines, tens of millions of Filipinos now see him as the rallying point for real Philippine reforms, reunification and development in our nation.”
In the recent decades, the lawmaker said the country’s neighbors “have already overtaken us, we now import rice from countries that developed their rice varieties here in the Philippines; their military forces [are] now more powerful in strength and technology; their capital cities now the centers of business and finance in our region, even though the Philippines is the country strategically located in the center of Southeast Asia.”
Also, Robes said in recent years, the Philippines has become the center of illegal drug trafficking in Southeast Asia, with the National Capital Region also becoming a hub for drug addicts and criminals preying on citizens every day.
“From that sense of the national hopelessness, now comes a reformer president, who is inspiring and leading the Philippine populace, and now becoming the rising Southeast Asian strongman leader that we can be proud of,” she added. Much has changed since he took office in June 2016, according to Robes.
“He has reshaped Philippine society at its very core, allowing new beliefs and new patriotic passions to form. His methods are the alternative ways to execute the long-overdue and badly needed reformation, upliftment and strengthening of our republic,” she said.
It is therefore fitting, Robes said, for the Filipino people to formally commemorate March 28 of every year, “the date of birth of our reformist president.”
Uniform building color
House Committee on Metro Manila Development Chairman Winston Castelo of Quezon City said it would be advantageous for the government to have a single, uniform and standard requirement for all its buildings.
Castelo is pushing for HB 1591 prescribing beige or a similar hue as the uniform color of all government buildings.
“Simple economies of scale dictate that it will be significantly advantageous for the government that all buildings or structures built and constructed through public funds, and all such government buildings or structures that may have been foreign-assisted projects, have a single, uniform and standard requirement for their protective coatings and official color, which henceforth should be established for common application,” he said.
The bill mandates the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to effectively implement the intent of the measure such that no plan of work could be undertaken by any public official, appointive or elective, in so far as any and all government buildings and structures are concerned without the approval of DPWH.
The agency will also set the standards for protective coatings, accredit protective coating painting contractors into a program, and ensure that these protective coatings or paints are available in the market.
Castelo said his proposal is prompted by the now pervasive practice of many elected public officials, including barangay captains, municipal or city mayors, congressmen, or even senators, of painting vital government buildings or structures with the clear intent to associate the construction of such building or structure to them at full cost on the part of the government.
For example, he said, it has now become part of the evolving engineering landscape to see school buildings, town halls, town plazas, public markets and other such public sites as being paint-coated with the color identifiable to that local or national elective official.
“These are just some of the things that this humble measure seeks to address and let the DPWH henceforth monitor, strictly implement, a coating and an official color requirement for all government structures or buildings, hence this submission. Neutral and indistinct as it is, the beige color should be adopted as the official color,” Castelo said.
“Immediate passage of this bill redounds to the full benefits of government against wastage, political identification and patronage that creates an atmosphere of social dissonance among constituents,” he added.
No-homework policy
Students must be allowed to live a normal life and be afforded some free time to enjoy with family and friends, according to Assistant Majority Leader and 1-Ang Edukasyon Rep. Salvador B. Belaro Jr.
That’s why Belaro is pushing for a measure establishing a no-homework policy for all elementary and high schools in the country.
“While both schools and teachers must ensure that students are properly educated and prepared for the eventual challenges of life, the latter must also be allowed to live a normal life and be afforded some free time to enjoy with family and friends,” he said.
The lawmaker said this proposed act seeks to provide, as much as possible, a homework-free weekend for students so as to allow them the luxury of rest and free time from the rigors of schooling during weekends.
Under the bill, all elementary and high schools in the country shall make sure that their respective teachers shall not give any unreasonable homework and/or assignments to their students to be done over the weekend.
No peace for the dead
Kabayan Rep. Harry Roque wants Congress to pass HB 3287 renaming the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB) to Libingan ng mga Bayani at mga Dating Pangulo.
Roque said Republic Act 208 provides for the construction of a national pantheon for presidents of the Philippines, national heroes and patriots of the country to perpetuate their memory for the inspiration and emulation of Filipinos.
“This national pantheon was renamed as Libingan ng mga Bayani by former President Ramon Magsaysay in Proclamation 86 because the name Republic Memorial Cemetery did not properly symbolize the valor of those buried in the cemetery,” he said.
“Indeed, former President Magsaysay believed the former name does not truly express the nation’s esteem and reverence for her war dead,” he added.
However, Roque said the burial of former President Ferdinand Marcos in the LNMB is causing massive unrest among Filipinos, who question the heroism of the former strongman president, given the human-rights record of the martial-law years.
“From both a legal and moral standpoint, many Filipinos, especially victims of martial law, question the propriety of burying President Marcos in the LNMB,” he said.
“By renaming the Libingan ng mga Bayani to Libingan ng mga Bayani at mga Dating Pangulo, we can defer from judging whether a former president was or was not a hero. Let the people’s memory be the judge [and] not the whims of a certain administration,” Roque added.
Fake or real
Due to the deluge of trolls in the Internet, two bills were filed to authenticate online and social-media membership and regulate social media.
In HB 4093, Rep. Arnolfo Teves Jr. of Negros Oriental said the government should mandate the authentication of online and social-media membership in the country through registration of their accounts using any valid government-issued identification and/or barangay certification.
“It aims to address cyber bullying, harassment, online scam, libel and even illicit drug trade and prostitution by holding individuals, private and public entities accountable for their online interactions,” he said.
To verify identities, he said, online social-networking services will be obliged to require their users, whether resident or nonresident, to supply and link their accounts to the valid identification numbers provided for by the government.
The lawmaker said social-media platforms are indispensable tools for disseminating information, especially those that concern corruption, mismanagement and the poor quality of service in different levels of government.
On the other hand, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez is pushing HB 5021 to regulate the use of social media.
“Information technology, needless to emphasize, has made life, living life and doing life facile and convenient. The explosion of online activity in recent years has led to several pitfalls that needed to be addressed, one of which is the abuse and misuse of social media, which should be curtailed,” Alvarez said.
He said the Internet and social media are firm fixtures in the daily lives of billions of people around the world. People can instantly connect and have correspondence with one another by the use of their cellphone, laptops or tablets through these social media.
However, he said for every benefit that social media may bring lies the danger posed by some people or groups that take social media as a means to gain undue advantage.
“In many occasions, users open fake accounts by presenting themselves to the online world as persons whom they are not. This is a classic case of identity theft that is detrimental to society,” he said.
The bill seeks to afford a remedial measure and regulate these social-media platforms by mandating the social-media companies to reasonably verify the identity of user applicants before they are allowed to open an account. Penalties are also provided for failure to comply with this verification requirement. Likewise, those who steal someone else’s identity shall also be penalized.
Rename the Philippines
True independence can only be attained if the Philippines will change its name, Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano said.
Thus, Alejano is pushing for the passage of HB 5867, or “An Act Constituting a Geographic Renaming Commission to Rename Our Country.”
“If we want to be truly independent, then we should throw away the bonds of colonialism by establishing our own national identity,” he said in a news statement.
“Many nations who were formally under colonial yoke have reverted back to their former pre-colonized name, as it gives them a sense of national pride and identity as a free people,” Alejano said.
Under Alejano’s proposal, the commission will be tasked to conduct a comprehensive study for a more appropriate name. The commission would be composed of three members from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines and the Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino.
“The reason for renaming our country is to throw away the vestiges of colonialism, to establish our national identity, and to define how our nation, our people and our national language will be addressed internationally,” he said.
The Philippines was named after King Philip II of Spain, under which it became a colony for 377 years.
“Various colonizers came over, which muddled our identity as a people and nation. Felipenas, Filipinas, Pilipinas, Philippines—which of these is the correct name of our country? It is high time for us to have a name, which befits us and is universal to all,” he added.
#DontTaxMyBeauty
Ako Bicol Rep. Rodel Batocabe has proposed a measure asking the Department of Finance to impose taxes on the Philippine beauty industry, instead of imposing excise tax on petroleum products under the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program.
The bill caused #DontTaxMyBeauty to go viral on social-media platforms. In his twitter post,
@quincharky said, “It’s a necessity more than a vanity.”
Also, @hyancint0311 said, “They should create a law imposing tax on lawmakers for every stupid law that they propose.”
Following criticisms from different people and groups, Batocabe withdrew his proposal imposing “vanity tax” on beauty products and services.
“In light of the intense controversy generated by our proposal to provide an alternative to the excise tax on petroleum and the recent statement of [Budget] Secretary Benjamin Diokno that the government has enough funds for now, we deemed it prudent not to push for the so-called vanity tax,” he said.
“We do realize from the sentiments that taxing beauty products would also adversely affect certain sectors, which, according to some, would also deprive them of their basic happiness,” Batocabe added.
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