SENATE President Vicente Sotto III is calling an all-senators’ caucus Monday to firm up their agenda of urgent bills to be tackled in their remaining three-week session calendar before Congress adjourns anew.
High on the priorities are amendatory bills that were earlier certified by the Palace: revising the Public Service Act, retail trade liberalization law, and the Foreign Investments Act.
“First of all, we only have three weeks left, so I will propose to the senators that we finalize the agenda in our 1 p.m. caucus [on] what we will do in the four-days session left in our calendar,” Sotto told DWIZ in an interview at the weekend.
Sotto added, partly in Filipino: “For example, we have what we call measures that are critical, as well as urgent bills emanating from Ledac, or the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council.
The Senate President cited, for instance, the Palace-endorsed GUIDE bill, or the Government Financial Institutions Unified Initiatives, intended to boost distressed enterprises in line with the Duterte administration’s economic recovery agenda in the pandemic.
“It [GUIDE] is still at the committee level but the technical working group [TWG] is expected to report it out this week so we can tackle it in plenary,” Sotto said, noting it was certified by Malacañang as an urgent bill.
President Duterte had also certified the amendatory bills for the over 80-year-old Public Service Act and the retail trade liberalization law; as well as the foreign investments bill.
According to Sotto, senators also expect the working committees concerned to report out this week other Palace-certified urgent bills so these can deliberated on in the remaining plenary sessions for final approval.
“Now, those bills with certificate of urgency by the President [will be tackled first]; for instance, the Amendments to the Public Service Act [PSA], also known as Franchise Law, is now in line for second reading,” Sotto said, adding: “Hopefully, this will not take long, as there are only two or three senators left with questions, so it is likely to be fast-tracked.”
The Senate leader pointed out the need to frontload the enabling legislation, noting that the existing Public Service Act was passed way back in “the 1930s.”
Sotto noted there is even an existing provision in the 1932 PSA that “requires Philippine authority to seek permission from the US President or the Governor General,” which means the revisions are long overdue. “So, we should have done it long ago, and we can do it now,” he stressed.
As for the proposed amendments to the Retail Trade Liberalization Act, the Senate President said these are intended to facilitate entry of foreign and local investments.
Sotto noted that another Palace-certified bill updating the Foreign Investments Act is also up for approval on Second Reading.
“That also has a certification from the President, in order to liberalize [the retail trade regime]; the only thing to be settled is how big the amount or threshold should be [for coverage]. Discussions there could be a bit longer, but hopefully in the next two or three weeks it can be done.”