Speaker...

“In just about five months, we have approved on third and final reading 10 of these measures. In addition, 37 other national bills and 128 local bills were likewise approved on third and final reading,” Romualdez said.

“This Maharlika bill is our response to the need for a more efficient, steady and reliable growth of the nation’s coffers, using well-thought of investment gains that will ultimately redound to the benefit of the Filipino people,” Romualdez said.

He said lawmakers exhaustively deliberated on the bill “in a bid to resuscitate our pandemic-battered economy.”

Romualdez noted that public consultations and extensive deliberations with agencies and stakeholders were conducted by House committees on banks and financial intermediaries, ways and means, and appropriations, while in plenary, several interpellators and numerous hours of session were devoted to “informative debates and manifestations discussing lengthily the nature, scope and benefits of the proposed measure.”

The House leader said the MIF bill was authored by 282 members of the chamber and said the creation and use of a sovereign wealth fund “has been tried and tested in both first world and developing economies.”

Romualdez said the House looks forward to the enactment of several other priority bills it has passed on third and final reading that were part of the Common Legislative Agenda (CLA) of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC).

These include the National Disease Prevention Management Authority or Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Medical Reserve Corps (HEART), Agrarian Reform Debts Condonation, Philippine Passport Act, Internet Transaction Act / E-Commerce Law, Waste-to-Energy Bill, Free Legal Assistance for Police and Soldiers, Apprenticeship Act, Public–Private Partnership (PPP) Act, Magna Carta of Barangay Health Workers, Valuation Reform Bill (Package 3), Eastern Visayas Development Authority (EVDA), and the Leyte Ecological Industrial Zone (see related story on A4 – Editors).

Last week, the House approved two other measures included in the CLA, namely the Virology Institute of the Philippines, and the Passive Income and Financial Intermediary Taxation Act (PIFITA), which is the fourth package under the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP).

On Thursday, the House of Representatives approved on third and final reading the Government Financial Institutions Unified Initiatives to Distressed Enterprises for Economic Recovery (GUIDE) bill and National Citizens Service Training Program (NCSTP), both measures under the CLA.

The House of Representatives also approved on third and final reading HB 6517 is titled, “An Act further strengthening professionalism and promoting the continuity of policies and modernization initiatives in the Armed Forces of the Philippines", which seeks changes in the fixed tour of duty of key AFP officers.

The two that have been signed into law by the President are the mobile phone Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) Registration Act and the bill resetting the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections, originally scheduled for this month, to October 2023.

(See full story online at manilastandard.net)