PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s second State of the Nation Address (SONA) adhered to this annual speech’s tradition of pomp and pageantry rather than the nitty gritty of governance since after the longish speech, Congress, the judiciary and the executive department of the government are back to the salt mines working with basically the same policies and programs.
Aside from the show of strong support from the leaderships of the House of Representatives and the Senate, which were the same since the end of the last regular session, nothing much has changed in the lay of the land in the Batasang Pambansa. The House was presided over by Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, the favorite presidential cousin, and attended by 311 representatives.
Tomorrow, six committees of the House will start work again on pending bills, including those that seek to amend Republic Act 8794 or the law imposing a motor vehicle user’s charge (MVUC) on owners of all types of motor vehicles. Being a tax measure, this will be handled by the Committee on Ways and Means.
Even before the second SONA, there had been criticism aired that despite the supermajority that President Bongbong Marcos enjoys in both houses of Congress, the legislature has not been delivering on the bills that were agreed as priority measures in the past meetings of the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC).
‘… Congress passed only one out of the more than 20 priority bills that the Chief Executive mentioned and endorsed during his first SONA last year.’
One political columnist even pointed out that Congress passed only one out of the more than 20 priority bills that the Chief Executive mentioned and endorsed during his first SONA last year. This is Republic Act 11953 which condones more than P58 billion unpaid loans of some 654,000 agrarian reform beneficiaries, a problem that for decades stunted the growth of our rural economies and consigned our aging farmers to a life of debts and misery.
Now, the House will try its level best to move in the legislative mill the following proposed measures, all considered priority by the President: the National Rightsizing Program, Unified System of Separation, Retirement and Pension of MUPs, National Employment Action Plan, and the Amendments to the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act.
Other bills which carry the same weight in importance are many, and we may cite some of them as the Amendments to the BOT Law or the Public-Private Partnership Bill, Virology Institute of the Philippines, Mandatory ROTC and NSTP, Magna Carta for Filipino Seafarers, and Amendments to the Bank Deposits Secrecy Law.
Over at the Senate, the senators will have to act on Ease of Paying Taxes Act, Magna Carta for Seafarers Act, New Philippine Passport Act, Internet Transactions Act, the Center for Disease Control Act, and the Act Institutionalizing the Automatic Income Classification of Provinces, Cities and Municipalities.
Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri said they will work on eight more priority measures under the LEDAC. He said that with most of their work in the Commission on Appointments done, they will have more time to devote to their plenary duties, as he stressed that they “will continue to prioritize the quality of our measures over the speed of our performance or the quantity of our output.”
This last statement from the Senate president is most reassuring and a very valid one.
