House, Senate to pass admin priority bills by June

MANILA, Philippines — Lawmakers yesterday vowed to pass all priority bills of the Marcos administration by June, including measures that seek to restore the mandatory Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), delineate the Philippines’ maritime zones and amend the laws on agricultural smuggling and government procurement.

The commitment was made during the fourth Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) meeting led by President Marcos at Malacañang.

“Many of the requests made by our President here in LEDAC have been approved by both houses of Congress and are already in their final stages. Either they are awaiting the signature of the President or in the bicameral conference committee meetings, which are going to be a law very, very soon,” a Palace statement quoted Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri as saying.

“We still have pending bills, but we committed to the President all 23 measures. Hopefully we’ll be done by June, before the Senate goes on a break. That is our commitment to the House of Representatives together with the President. But we’re on track to pass all of these by June,” Zubiri added.

He said 15 measures would be passed before the Senate goes on sine die adjournment while the remaining eight would be approved in June.

Speaker Martin Romualdez said his chamber has completed passing all the LEDAC priority measures and has transmitted these to the Senate.

“The House has to finish these before these are brought to the Senate. That’s why we always focus on our LEDAC priority measures, so deliberations in the Senate will not be delayed. We did not rush them but we worked overtime in the House,” Romualdez said.

Presidential Communications Secretary Cheloy Garafil said 21 bills were identified as priority for passage by June during the 6th LEDAC technical working group meeting on Jan. 16.

The list was narrowed down to 15 due to the limited number of session days remaining.

The LEDAC decided to add five more priority bills that support the social and economic measures to be passed in June.

These priority bills are the proposed Open Access in Digital Transmission Act, Enterprise-based Education Program or Apprenticeship Act, CREATE More,