Press Release - Estrada: Sponsorship speech

Mr. President, esteemed colleagues, as your Chairperson of the Senate Committee on National Defense and Security, Peace, Unification and Reconciliation, I have the distinct honor to sponsor the Bicameral Conference Committee Report on the disagreeing provisions of Senate Bill No. 2455 and House Bill No. 9713 or the Self-Reliant Defense Posture Revitalization bill.

This legislation aims to revive the SRDP program which was implemented during the 1970s, and envisioned domestic manufacturing and local sourcing of weapons, ammunition, equipment and related defense materiel.

Layon po ng ating panukala na maging gawang Pinoy, gawang 'Pinas at sariling atin ang mga sandata, sasakyan, at iba pang kagamitan ng ating mga sundalo, pulis at mga tagapagpatupad ng batas. Bukod sa matutugunan ng mas palalakasing local defense industry ang mga pangangailangan ng ating sandatahang lakas at tanggulang pambansa, inaasahan nating makakapagbigay ito ng trabaho sa ating mga mamamayan, magtutulak ng innovation o pagbabago, at mapapababa ang foreign exchange outflow.

Lubos ang ating pasasalamat sa ating mga kaibigang mambabatas mula sa House of Representatives sa pangunguna nina Congressman Oscar Malapitan at Congressman Raul "Boboy" Tupas, kapwa naging Chairman ng House Committee on National Defense and Security sa kanilang pakikipagtulungan at pagpayag na gamitin ang Senate version bilang working draft at sa pagtanggap sa karamihan sa mga probisyong nakapaloob dito.

Your Senate panel, meanwhile, accepted key provisions introduced by our friends from the House which further clarified some of our own.

We adopted Section 5 of the House Bill which provides guiding principles on the development of the National Defense Industry; as well as Section 12 of the counterpart measure which proposes the development of programs and projects on emerging and evolving technologies.

Moreover, we welcomed additional incentives from the House panel which we hope could attract more investors and innovators into the local defense industry.

We amended Section 15 of the Senate version to adjust the ceiling of the approved budget for the contract (ABC) subject to the approval of the head of the agency. This