Belmonte trumpets House passage of decades-old bills

Speaker Feliciano “Sonny” Belmonte Jr. on Monday vouched for the credibility of the House of Representatives amid the passage of pertinent legislations, some of these had languished in Congress for decades before it saw the light of day in the 16th Congress.

“The 15th Congress was characterized by the passage of several landmark legislation. It passed measures that languished for decades for lack of political will,” Belmonte said in his speech at the opening of the third regular session.

Belmonte cited the passage and approval into law of the Philippine Competition Act and the Cabotage Law.

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Belmonte said the competition law, which demolishes monopolies and penalizes economic cartels, languished in Congress for almost three decades.

“Just last week, President Aquino signed into law the Philippine Competition Act. This is the anti-trust law that took all of 26 years and eight Congresses to finally enact into law. With this law, we now prohibit and penalize anti-competitive agreements, the abuse of dominant market or supply positions, and anti-competitive mergers…” Belmonte said.

He said the Cabotage Law would seek to lower the costs of export and import by facilitating the passage of foreign ports. The Cabotage Law had been pending since the 11th Congress.

“We also now have the amended Cabotage Law allowing foreign vessels to call on multiple local ports enabling importers and exporters to co-load contained in foreign ships entering and exiting Philippines. No longer [will] corn shipped from California to Manila be cheaper than corn shipped from General Santos to Manila,” Belmonte said.

He said Congress proved its credibility in the passage of laws for househelp, just compensation for victims of abuses under the Marcos administration, reproductive health, K to 12 education system, sin tax, mandatory PhilHealth coverage for senior citizens, the higher tax exemption cap on bonuses, the creation of two additional Sandiganbayan courts, the government-owned and -controlled corporation (GOCC) governance Act which seeks to end abuses in government firms, among others.

“Indeed, if there is a single word that can describe the result of the work of the last five years and the work of both the 15th and 16th Congresses, that word is credibility,” Belmonte said.

“And it is this credibility, earned at home and around the world, which has generated tremendous growth potential for our country,” he added.

He also said Congress has always approved the budget on time, and thus doing away with the previous administration’s practice of reenacted budget.

“We are credible to our taxpayers and our citizens because we finally ended the long-standing practice of previous administrations operating on a re-enacted budget. Once and for all we said no to the wholesale treatment of budgeting as an outright spoils system based on political patronage,” Belmonte said.

President Aquino is set to deliver his last State of the Nation Address at 4 p.m. Monday.

For more updates on President Benigno Aquino III’s last State of the Nation Address, visit INQUIRER.net’s special Sona 2015 site.