MANILA, Philippines — Bayan Muna party-list called on the 18th Congress to address “poor conditions of the people” as it filed 30 House bills and resolutions, which they said would “heavily impact” the lives of Filipinos.
“Bayan Muna and the whole Makabayan bloc hope that these measures be prioritized because these are the ones that heavily impact on the lives of the Filipino people,” the party-list said in a statement on Monday.
“Addressing the poor conditions of the people should be the highlight of the 18th Congress,” it added.
Bayan Muna said that among the bills they filed on the first day of the 18th Congress include those that seek to increase the minimum wage salary as well as the Social Security System (SSS) pension.
“Among the bills they filed were the P750 national minimum wage bill, the P16K minimum salary for government employees, the SSS pension increase, the social pension hike, the free hemodialysis bill, the people’s mining bill, the Human Rights Defenders bill,” Bayan Muna said.
Bayan Muna also filed “the genuine agrarian reform bill, the genuine small coconut farmers trust fund, the no mining zone bill, the anti-Manila Bay reclamation bill, the SOGIE (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression) bill, the repeal of the TRAIN (Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion) law, the re-nationalization of Petron, and the scrapping of VAT (value-added tax) on oil, electricity and water.”
House resolutions
The said party-list also filed resolutions that seek to investigate the “unbundling of oil prices [and] the election-related harassment of the Makabayan bloc.”
Bayan Muna, through a resolution, also called for an inquiry on the President’s Memorandum Order No. 32 calling for the deployment of supplementary state forces in Samar, Negros Oriental, Negros Occidental, and the Bicol Region.
The proposed Kaliwa Dam, the moratorium on coal mining, and the Recto (Reed) Bank incident investigation were also areas of focus in the resolutions filed by the party-list. (Editor: Eden Estopace)