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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 24) — Lawmakers ended their two-month break on Monday to gather in their respective chambers and open the second regular session of the 19th Congress.
At 10 a.m., Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri and House Speaker Martin Romualdez welcomed their colleagues in the respective chambers and banged the gavel to mark the official resumption of session.
Notably, minimum public health standards were eased in both chambers, with many attendants no longer wearing face masks, following the lifting of the state of public health emergency due to COVID-19.
In the Senate, 23 senators were present, and only Senator Pia Cayetano was unable to attend due to official travel. She led the delegation of the Philippine Women’s National Football team for its debut at the FIFA Women’s World Cup, her office said.
Zubiri, in his speech, first recognized the achievements of the Senate in the first regular session.
This includes the different probes into the ₱6.7 billion drug bust, issues involving the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, the problem of the shortage of driver’s license plastic cards, smuggling of agricultural products, power outages experienced in different parts of the country, and hearings on e-governance.
“While our investigations make for great TV, we launch them not for show, but for solutions,” Zubiri said.
Meanwhile, 311 out of 314 members of the House of Representatives were in attendance during the lower chamber’s opening session.
“Reconvening for the Second Regular Session, I borrow wisdom from our esteemed President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., who asserts, ‘to forge significant progress, we must summon the bravery to envisage change, the fortitude to strive for it, and the unity to materialize it’,” Romualdez said.
Priority bills
In his speech, Romualdez also listed the 20 priority measures approved during the second Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) meeting.
These are the following:
– Amendments to the BOT Law or Public-Private Partnership bill
– National Disease Prevention Management Authority
– Internet Transactions Act or E-Commerce Law
– Health Emergency Auxiliary Reinforcement Team (HEART) Act (formerly Medical Reserve Corps)
– Virology Institute of the Philippines
– Mandatory ROTC and National Service Training Program
– Revitalizing the Salt Industry
– Valuation Reform
– e-Government and e-Governance
– Ease of Paying Taxes
– National Government Rightsizing Program
– Unified System of Separation/Retirement and Pension of Military and Other Uniformed Personnel
– LGU Income Classification
– Waste-to-Energy Bill
– New Philippine Passport Act
– Magna Carta of Filipino Seafarers
– National Employment Action Plan
– Amendments to the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act
– Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas-endorsed Bank Deposit Secrecy
– Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act bills
Romualdez said the House targets to pass these proposed measures before the year ends.
“We face the remaining bills in the LEDAC priority list with enthusiasm and optimism, steadfast in our determination to transform these initiatives into concrete laws for the benefit of our fellow Filipinos,” he said.
The call to pass a law that will increase the minimum wage was not included in the list, but this was mentioned by Zubiri as one of his priority bills in the Senate.
Zubiri said the upper chamber has approved in principle the proposed ₱150 nationwide minimum wage increase and is just working on the committee report regarding this.
Senate Minority leader Koko Pimentel in a briefing after the session also called on his colleagues to prioritize such a measure. Since regional wage boards have been slow in acting on the issue, Congress should immediately act and fill the void, he noted.
Senators will now head to the Batasang Pambansa to convene with congressmen and hear President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s second state of the nation address in the afternoon.
