The House of Representatives will resume plenary sessions on Monday (Aug. 23) following a two-week suspension due to the imposition of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in the National Capital Region (NCR) amid the surge in COVID-19 infections.
Speaker Lord Allan Velasco said the House has to work double time on pending measures that it should have already taken up had the NCR not been placed under the strictest quarantine classification for two weeks.
“We will tackle as many bills and resolutions as possible to make up for the time lost during the ECQ,” Velasco said.
The Speaker said the chamber is also anticipating the submission by the Executive Department of the National Expenditure Program (NEP), which contains the proposed P5.024-trillion national budget for 2022.
Once the NEP is received by Congress, Velasco said the House Committee on Appropriations, chaired by ACT-CIS Partylist Rep. Eric Yap, will begin the budget deliberations as soon as possible.
“We are ready to carry out our constitutional duty of carefully scrutinizing the NEP and eventually pass a national budget that is truly reflective and responsive to the needs of Filipinos as COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on people’s lives and the economy,” Velasco said.
Last Aug. 2, the House leadership decided to suspend plenary sessions while the NCR was under ECQ from August 6 to 20.
During the two-week lockdown period, all meetings were held via videoconferencing and congressional offices were closed. Only Secretariat personnel with extremely essential tasks were allowed to report physically to the office.
Such measures, according to Velasco, were necessary as authorities tried to contain a fast-spreading outbreak of the highly infectious Delta coronavirus variant in NCR and other regions across the country.
A recent memorandum issued by Secretary-General Mark Llandro Mendoza provides that the House will resume plenary sessions on Aug. 23 under the hybrid platform.
The sessions shall be held from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., with only the Speaker or his duly designated deputies, the Majority Leader and Minority Leader or their respective representatives, and a limited number of Secretariat personnel physically present inside the session hall. The rest of House members shall attend the session through videoconference. (HOR) – jlo
