Salceda to correct flaws of Bulacan airport ecozone measure in refiled bill

Albay Representative Joey Salceda said Monday that he will file a bill to address President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr.'s concerns over the creation of Bulacan Airport City Special Economic Zone and Freeport Authority by giving the latter more authority in its implementation.

Salceda, who served as House and Ways committee chairperson during the 18th Congress, proposed an additional provision allowing the President, upon recommendation of the Department of Finance and the National Economic and Development Authority, to extend the metes and bounds of the ecozone.

He added there should be a comprehensive master plan and feasibility study to be presented to the Regional Development Council III and to the Economic Development Cluster of Cabinet before the House committee on economic affairs conducts a public hearing on the new bill.

Salceda also said the House of Representatives, in drafting the bill for the Bulacan Airport project, will require a cost-and-benefit analysis and that he will introduce safeguards to address the President’s fiscal and economic concerns that prompted the chief executive to veto or reject the measure even if his sister, Senator Imee Marcos, is in favor of its passage.

“I am telling potential investors and other proponents to give us a sense of their plans so that we can already weigh the costs versus the benefits. What I can assure the President and the public is that we will make sure that the concerns in the veto message are addressed," he said in a statement.

“While I was not one of the original proponents of the vetoed bill, I hope to help move this bill forward by filing a corrected version. The President’s concerns are valid, so we have to take heed," he added.

In doing so, Salceda, an economist, said that his proposed bill will explicitly state that the ecozone will be fully subject to the rules, procedures, including approvals, and regulations under Title 13 of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) law.

Likewise, he said his proposal will expressly provide that the power of the ecozone authority to grant incentives will be a delegated power from the Fiscal Incentives Review Board which should address the President’s concern about the lack of coherence with existing laws, rules, and regulations.

"This version removes extraordinary powers from the authority’s control," he added.

Salceda then argued that the ecozone authority will also be subject to the scrutiny of the Commission on Audit and other governance mechanisms under Republic Act No. 10149 or the GOCC Governance Act, particularly Sections 24, 25, and 26, on audit mechanisms; and to subsequent rules and regulations issued by the Governance Commission for GOCCs.

In closing, the veteran lawmaker also said that the ecozone authority’s power to acquire either by purchase, negotiation, or condemnation proceedings, any private land within or adjacent to the Bulacan Ecozone will come with certain conditions such as the following:

•     subjecting agrarian reform land acquisition to clearance from the Secretary of Agrarian Reform, after a process similar to the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent process and
•     including a provision stating that the exercise of powers to acquire land from agrarian reform beneficiaries should be subject to Presidential approval through a proclamation. 

—AOL, GMA News