A year and a month into office, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) renders his second state of the nation address (SONA) today of the 19th Congress. PBBM described it as nothing but a “performance report” of what his administration has accomplished since he assumed office at Malacañang on June 30 last year.
The traditional SONA caps the ceremonial joint opening sessions of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Actually, the SONA is not the President’s own self-assessment of accomplishments and lack of progress in some areas. It should be a shared evaluation by the Chief Executive with fellow elected members of Congress of what they have so far delivered – or failed to deliver – from what were promised during the first SONA last year.
After all, the President, the Senate president, the House Speaker, and other key leaders of Congress agreed beforehand on a common legislative agenda (CLA). This is a listing of “urgent” priority administration bills identified for speedy enactment. They craft together the CLA through the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) that the President convenes shortly before or after the joint opening sessions of Congress.
On the way to second of the five remaining years of PBBM’s term, the SONA kicks off day one of the second regular sessions of the 19th Congress whose life ends in 2025 yet. At the LEDAC meeting held last July 11, a total of 20 legislative measures were adopted as CLA. Of the 20 bills, 18 were part already of the 42 priority legislative measures forged during the first LEDAC meeting of PBBM in October, 2022. These are all still pending in various stages at the legislative mills in Congress and being set for approval before the end of this year.
Of these 42 LEDAC bills, five were already signed into law, according to Malacañang’s inventory. These were, namely, Republic Act (RA) 11934, or An Act Requiring the Registration of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM); RA 11935, or the Postponement of the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections; RA 11939, or the Amendments to the Fixed Tenure of Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff; RA 11593, or the New Agrarian Emancipation Act; and the controversial Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) Act of 2023 that was just signed last July 18. Awaiting the President’s signature is the enrolled bill on the Department of Health Specialty Centers Act.
Senate president Juan Miguel Zubiri cited nine bills are pending on second reading in the Upper Chamber and rest of the 26 bills are pending at the committee level out of 35 measures listed in the CLA. At the Lower House, Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez reported to PBBM they have passed already on third and final reading 32 bills of the 42 priority measures from the first LEDAC measures.
Naturally, the administration’s legislative bills get priority in the order of business of Congress. The Speaker happens to be PBBM’s first cousin and the President’s son, neophyte Ilocos Norte Rep. Sandro Marcos is the House senior deputy majority leader. To the credit of the Speaker and Rep. Marcos, the Lower House functioned well even if the two solons were regular mainstays in all the 13 foreign trips PBBM embarked on in his first year of office.
It is a totally different situation in the Upper Chamber. Sen. Imee Marcos, the President’s eldest sister, is just one of the 24 so-called “independent republics” at the Senate. But the administration’s legislative agenda is carried out by the ruling majority bloc that included the Nacionalista Party (NP) to which PBBM was once a card-bearing member.
Two of the NP stalwarts at the Senate are the mother-and-son tandem of Senators Cynthia and Mark Villar. In fact, both mother and son stood among the witnesses while PBBM signed the MIF Law at Malacañang. The Speaker and the Villars are among the principal authors of the MIF Law. The younger Villar sponsored its passage at the Senate as the chairman of the Committee on banks, financial institutions and currencies.
At the Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum a day after the MIF was signed, Sen. Villar credited PBBM for being “hands-on” while the bill was still being crafted. Representing the Senate in several of the President’s official and state visits abroad, Sen. Villar recalled his discussions with PBBM of new ideas, past experiences, and the “best practices” of sovereign wealth funds (SWF) in other countries relative to the setting up of MIF in the Philippines.
Having managed their family business empire before he entered politics, Villar’s own hands-on business experience also enabled him to capably steer the approval of the controversial MIF bill. He honed his legislative skills during stints at the 15th and 16th Congress. Before he could start his third and last term as Las Piñas City Congressman at the defunct 17th Congress, Villar got appointed as Secretary of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) of former President Rodrigo Duterte. Villar undertook the “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure flagship program at the DPWH during the Duterte administration.
Sen. Villar is very grateful this flagship program – now dubbed as “Build, Better, More” – continues although renamed to carry the popular initials of the sitting President. In a scale of one to ten, with ten as the highest, Sen. Villar gives PBBM a score of nine for not stopping but finishing on-going projects started by previous Presidents.
“He (PBBM) continued with all the projects. I think that’s the correct strategy,” Sen. Villar pointed out.
To a former Congressman-turned Cabinet member and then back to being a lawmaker, Sen. Villar fits to be called as someone who had “been there, done that” guy.
“Many big ticket infrastructure project cannot be done in just one term. We need continuity and we saw this administration has given that continuity,” he stressed.
For accomplishments, Villar believes the PBBM administration deserves the highest grade of “A” for the efforts, pun not intended.