212 House bills passed at first session of Congress—Belmonte

By: Marc Jayson Cayabyab - 11 years ago

House of Representatives. AP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The House of Representatives has approved 212 bills during its first regular session of the 16th Congress, with both chambers passing five national laws.

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said this in his speech before the Congress adjourns “on a hopeful note.”

He added that the lower chamber also filed more than 1,000 proposed measures.

“Our committees hit the ground running from the first day of this Congress to this hour to process and consolidate 1,097 measures to produce 328 committee reports…,” Belmonte said.

“In 71 session days, we passed in plenary five Republic Acts, put onstream for presidential approval 10 national bills, approved 212 bills on third reading, and adopted 107 resolutions,” he added.

One of the measures awaiting the president’s approval is the bill requiring the printing of graphic warnings on at least 40 percent of the cigarettes packs.

Also awaiting the Chief Executive’s approval is a bill seeking free mobile alerts during natural calamities and manmade disasters.

The others are those that extend the life of the Philippine National Railways, strengthen consumer protection in the purchase of new vehicles (“Lemon law”), liberalize the entry and scope of foreign banks operations in the country, and promote the development of micro, small and medium enterprises or the Go Negosyo Bill.

The other notable proposed laws passed on final reading is for the modernization of weather bureau Pagasa, which includes increasing the salaries of its personnel; as well as for increasing the prescriptive period for violations of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act to make it more difficult for public officials to evade accountability.

Meanwhile, education is a priority in the chamber, with at least 34 education bills approved on final reading.

Among the notable ones are those for ladderized education, open distance learning in higher education, unified student financial assistance system for higher technical education, voluntary student loan program of private banks, open high school system, free college education in information and technology, and the installation of special education centers in all public schools.

For agrarian reform, the chamber has approved bills to institutionalize credit support of the Land Bank of the Philippines for agrarian reform beneficiaries, farmers and fisherfolk; promote soil and water conservation technologies for sustainable land management, strengthen the regulatory functions of the Bureau of Fisheries; and to institute a national land use policy.

For health, the House passed bills for mandatory PhilHealth coverage for senior citizens, pre-hospital emergency medical care, and a price list from health care facilities of health care services.

“I can go on enumerating what we accomplished – but, let it suffice to state that the first regular session of the 16th Congress bore witness to a House that is at work despite the difficult changes we faced,” Belmonte said.

The House of Representatives was faced with allegations that over 150 solons were included in the list of pork barrel scam beneficiaries furnished by principal whistleblower Benhur Luy. Janet Lim-Napoles had also furnished a list of at least 69 representatives tagged in the scam.

Plunder and graft charges were filed against lawmakers, officials and accused mastermind Napoles purportedly involved in the scam.

The scam involved billions of Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF) allegedly spent on ghost projects to pocket commissions among lawmakers, officials and Napoles.

The practice of allotting billions of public funds to lawmakers for them to ease poverty in their constituencies was struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional at the height of the investigation on the scam.