Sotto: Palace should call for special session of Congress

MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Vicente Sotto III has asked Malacañang to call for a special session so Congress could approve the passage of another Bayanihan bill to fund programs that would help the country recover from the COVID-19 health crisis.

The Senate had approved a Bayanihan 2 bill on second reading, but was unable to pass it on third and final reading before it adjourned last week in the absence of a certification from Malacañang that the measure was urgent.

The certification would have allowed it to bypass the three-day rule between second and third reading.

In a radio interview, Sotto said he had called up Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea to suggest that the Palace call for a special session for the approval of the Bayanihan 2 bill.

But he told Medialdea that before the session, he would form a group of senators composed of Senators Ralph Recto, Sonny Angara, Pia Cayetano, and Grace Poe to meet with their House counterparts and the economic managers to discuss what provisions would be acceptable to them in the Bayanihan 2 bill.

After this has been ironed out, that is when Malacañang should call for the special session, he said.

“Then we would pass the Bayanihan 2 as agreed,” he said over dwIZ.

According to Sotto, the President did not certify as urgent the Senate’s earlier version of the Bayanihan 2 bill because the economic managers wanted 32 amendments to the measure.

—Leila B. Salaverria