House regains credibility with key legislations – Belmonte

MANILA, Philippines - The House of Representatives has regained credibility in the eyes of Filipinos after enacting various key legislation and contributing to good governance and economic growth, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said yesterday.

In a speech before his colleagues at the opening of the third and final session of the 16th Congress, Belmonte said the House has always played a key role in pursuing the Aquino administration’s “daang matuwid (straight path).”

He said it became the chamber’s collective mission as well, “to restore decency to public service, ending long-standing practices of preferences, exemptions and abuse, profoundly guided by the sense of fairness and decency of the Filipino.”

“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 said.

Some 246 lawmakers out of the 291 members of the chamber attended the opening of the session.

He said in the 15th Congress or from 2010 to 2013, the House passed several landmark measures that languished for decades for lack of political will – granting just compensation to the Marcos human rights victims, the Kasambahay Bill and the Reproductive Health Law.

He said the enactment of the Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations Governance Act forced previously non-performing GOCCs to remit P28 billion in dividends to the treasury in 2013, and another P32.3 billion in 2014.

The chamber also passed the Sin Tax Reform Law that reduced incidence of smoking while raising government revenues, and approved the creation of an additional two divisions in the Sandiganbayan “with the intention to speed up the process of putting the guilty behind bars.”

“We are credible to our workers because we raised their tax exemption for their 13th month pay from the current P30,000 based on the 1992 price index to P82,000, restoring our workers’ lost purchasing power which had been eroded by inflation,” Belmonte said.

He said the House is now also credible to children who have more access to quality education, from childhood to adulthood due to the enactment of the Kindergarten Act and the K-12 Act.

The House also ensured the welfare of senior citizens after it made PhilHealth coverage mandatory for them.

He said the chamber in the 15th and 16th Congress 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.

He said the 16th Congress mandated to enact the Philippine Competition Act that was 26 years and eight congresses in the making. Signed into law by President Aquino earlier this month, it prohibits and penalizes anti-competitive agreements, the abuse of dominant market or supply positions and anti-competitive mergers.

He said the House also approved the proposed amendments to the Cabotage Law that allowed foreign vessels to call on multiple local ports, enabling importers and exporters to co-load containers in foreign ships entering and exiting the Philippines that will ultimately lower cost of goods.

No distractions

Meanwhile, Belmonte also said the alleged plot to oust him would not distract the House of Representatives from passing important pending legislative measures.

“The move to unseat me may or may not be real, but I’m sure it won’t affect our determination to pass vital legislation,” he said in a text message.

Aside from the draft law that would create a new Bangsamoro region in Muslim Mindanao, Belmonte and his colleagues are aiming to pass the proposed P3-trillion 2016 national budget before those running in the May 9, 2016 elections file their certificates of candidacy in mid-October.