Speaker vows to pass 12 more pending priority bills 

MANILA, Philippines — Speaker Martin Romualdez is happy with the productive performance of the House of Representatives for 2022, and has vowed that the leadership will work even harder to pass all 12 remaining priority bills this year.

“You can count on the House to work harder this year to do our part in improving the lives of our people. I truly believe it is the best way to express our gratitude for the greatest gift all public officials have received – the opportunity to serve our country,” he said.

The Leyte congressman also welcomed the good news from Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno that the worst of the country’s pandemic status is finally over, and that the best is yet to come under the administration of President Marcos.

“This definitely inspires us to work double-time when we resume session this year, pushing us to legislate more laws needed to further boost the economy and improve the living condi-tion of our people,” Romualdez added.

Nineteen of the 32 common legislative agenda listed by the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (Ledac) have already been approved by the House before 2022 ended, and have been forwarded to the Senate for senators’ concurrence.

But instead of 13 more pending bills, this has been reduced to only 12 following the integration of two bills into one: the e-Governance and e-Government bills aimed at simplifying digi-tal transactions that have become common nowadays.

The 12 Ledac-approved measures will ensure job creation, sustainable health system, and ensuring economic recovery and growth as the country tries to recover from the 2020 reces-sion, and at the same time protect the country’s most vulnerable sectors.

The 12 priority measures pertain to enactment of an enabling law for the natural gas industry, amendments to the Electric Power Industry Reform Act, Unified System of Separation, Re-tirement and Pension, e-Governance Act and e-Government Act, National Land Use Act, National Defense Act, National Government

Rightsizing Program, Budget Modernization Bill, Department of Water Resources, establishment of the Negros Island Region, Magna Carta for Filipino Seafarers, and the Establishment of Regional Specialty Hospitals.

Rep. LRay Villafuerte, meanwhile, believes that Marcos will be able to deliver on his promises if he were to base his prediction on what the Chief Executive did for the first six months of his administration, or the second half of 2022.

“President Marcos’ decisive initiatives on easing COVID-19 protocols and reopening the country to tourists and investors in the first semester of his presidency has begun generating more foreign direct investments and putting our economy on the mend,” he said.

According to the Camarines Sur congressman, such decisive actions will keep the country’s economic momentum on its “upward trajectory this 2023 despite an impending global reces-sion.”

“The most remarkable feat of President Marcos thus far comprises his decisive moves on the public health and economic fronts that sent a loud and clear message to the world that the Philippines has reopened fully for business despite the lingering pandemic,” he said.

Among the other feats, he said, were Marcos’ “aggressive pitch in his overseas trips for the Philippines as an Asian business hub with investor-friendly policies plus a young and dynamic labor force” that netted over $23.6 billion worth in investment pledges.

Villafuerte is confident the administration can keep the Philippines on high-growth mode partly because of the President’s apt decision to sustain the unprecedented level of mega in-vestments of the past administration in public infrastructure, “considering that infra spending has the highest multiplier effect on the economy.”