Missing out on matters that count

Your editorial on Dec. 7, entitled “Legislative Priorities” was very apt and timely. The 3rd Session of the 17th Congress, which is about to end, concentrated on political matters and relegated to the “last two minutes” even the General Appropriations Act.

 Aside from the investment measures you pointed out in the editorial, Congress also missed out  on matters that concern very much with the senior sector of Philippine society. Even President Duterte, himself a senior, did not give a beep for seniors in his SONA. 

There are many bills and resolutions, too many to enumerate here, filed in the House of Representatives by Senior Citizens Party-List Rep. Francisco Datol Jr. seeking to give benefits to seniors in terms of employment opportunities, healthcare and welfare, financial benefits, particularly pension increases, but they are still mired in the legislative pool of processing and hearings.  

The undersigned had been participating in these hearings as representative of the Philippine Association of Retired Persons (PARP) and only one bill, seeking to create the National Seniors Citizens Commission, is on second base, waiting for the approval by the committee on appropriations of the House of Representatives.

 Having worked in the House for 24 years (I wrote a book, “How Bills Become Philippine Laws”) I am concerned, specially because Congress will adjourn sometime in February 2019,  the start of the campaign period,  that the bills unacted upon by Congress will, in words of a former congressman, “will lie there and will die there, in the Archives Division of Congress.”

Unless both Houses work overtime in January 2019 to finish the remaining bills during the “last two minutes” in the legislative calendar. – Atty. Mafeo R. Vibal, vice president – external affairs and legislative liaison officer (PARP)