House to prioritize 12 measures to help jumpstart economy — Romualdez

The House of Representatives will prioritize deliberations of 12 economic measures to help the national government jumpstart the economy amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Majority Leader Martin Romualdez said Tuesday.

In a statement, Romualdez said five of the 12 economic measures that the House is prioritizing remain under period of interpellations in plenary while the remaining seven are still at the committee level.

These 12 measures, he added, are what remains of the 22 bills endorsed by the country's economic managers to the 18th Congress. The 10 others have already been approved by the House and are pending in the Senate.

“I have explicit instructions from Speaker Lord Allan Velasco. We have to prioritize these 12 bills that were endorsed by Secretary Sonny Dominguez as part of the legislative priorities of the Department of Finance,” Romualdez said.

“These legislative imperatives, according to Secretary Dominguez, are needed to help ensure that the economy recovers quickly from the corona-induced crisis in a strong, sustainable, and resilient manner,” he added.

The five measures under plenary deliberations are as follows:

• House Bill 7749 or the Government Financial Institutions Unified Initiatives to Distressed Enterprises for Economic Recovery (GUIDE);
• House Bill 7425 or the Digital Transactions Value Added Tax;
• House Bill 7406 or Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) Modernization Program;
• House Bill 6135 or Fiscal Mining Regime;and
• House Bill 7425 or Internet Transactions Act/E-Commerce Law)

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Meanwhile, those still pending at the committee level are:

• Military and Uniformed Personnel (MUP) Services Separation, Retirement, and Pension Bill;
• Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Modernization Bill;
• Coconut Farmers Trust Fund Bill;
• Department of Water Resources and Water Regulatory Commission Bill;
• Warehouse Receipts Bill;
• National Disease Prevention and Management Authority Bill; and
• National Land Use Bill

“I have no doubt that the House of Representatives will be able to pass all these measures before the onset of the election fever next year," Romualdez said.

"We are committed in helping our economic managers set in place the bold reforms that the Duterte administration has started to keep the economy strong and resilient," he added. — Erwin Colcol/RSJ, GMA News