Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the Duterte administration and the Legislative branch have already agreed to prioritize at least 14 priority that need to be passed before the onset of the election period next year.
Dominguez said the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) held a meeting a “few days ago” where they discussed pending measures that need to be prioritized.
“We agreed on a menu of measures that have to be passed before the election period begins sometime in March of next year,” he said in a forum on Friday. “We have a list of about 14 measures and these are and about what I mentioned in my talk earlier, were the top priorities for the legislature,” he added, even as he assured that the administration is “going to work until the last minute of its mandate.”
When sought to clarify what are these 14 measures that LEDAC agreed upon, Dominguez declined to provide any further details.
“OP [Office of the President], Senate and House will formally announce [these priority measures] jointly,” Dominguez said in a separate message to finance reporters on Friday.
There are actually 11 LEDAC priority bills as of February 19, a list provided by DOF to the BusinessMirror showed.
Based on the list, the priority measures include the Government Financial Institutions Unified Initiatives to Distressed Enterprises for Economic Recovery Bill; Package 3 of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program or the Valuation Reform Bill; Package 4 of the CTRP, or the Passive Income Tax and Financial Intermediary Tax Reform Bill; Amendments to the Public Service Act; Amendments to the Retail Trade Liberalization Act; Amendments to the Foreign Investments Act; Rural Agricultural and Fisheries Development Financing System Act law; Medical Reserve Corps Act; Bill on Creation of a Disease Prevention and Control Authority; Bill on tax treatment on Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGO) and “E-Sabong”; and the bill on Unified System of Separation, Retirement and Pension of the Military and Uniformed Personnel.
The bill on tax treatment of POGOs and E-Sabong, as well as the bill on Unified System of Separation, Retirement and Pension of the Military and Uniformed Personnel were both identified as “new inclusion.” Except for these two bills, the nine other bills were tagged as top priority in the harmonized LEDAC-Common Legislative Agenda (LEDAC-CLA) for the 18th Congress, based on separate LEDAC documents dated February 17 and 18 also obtained by the BusinessMirror.
A copy of the February 18 PowerPoint presentation of Acting Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and LEDAC Secretariat Karl Kendrick T. Chua during a LEDAC executive committee meeting showed that the top 9 priority bills are targeted to be passed in Congress by June this year.
The same presentation also showed that the bill on Unified System of Separation, Retirement and Pension of the Military and Uniformed Personnel was listed among the 13 “remaining bills” that are targeted to be passed in Congress by December this year.
As for the bill on POGO and E-Sabong, both were neither listed in the top 9 priority bills nor among the 13 remaining bills based on the February 17 and 18 documents.
The National Economic and Development Authority serves as the Secretariat of the LEDAC, which was created through RA 7640 approved by then-President Fidel V. Ramos on December 9, 1992.
The LEDAC serves as a consultative and advisory body to the President as the head of the national economic and planning agency for further consultations and advice on certain programs and policies essential to the realization of the goals of the national economy. It also serves as a venue to facilitate high-level policy discussions on vital issues and concerns affecting national development.