House Majority Leader and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez said on Sunday that a meeting of the Legislative-Executive Coordinating Council (LECC) recently has identified the initial list of its common priority measures for inclusion in President Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte’s legislative agenda.
Romualdez, who chairs the House Committee on Rules, said among the pieces of legislation the Congress leaders and top Cabinet officials want taken up for immediate approval are the Salary Standardization Law (SSL) 5 for civilian state workers, creation of the Department of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), postponement of the May 2020 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) polls to May 2023, and free legal assistance to the members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
“Let’s wait for the official communication from the Palace about the final list of priority legislative measures it would be submitting to Congress. This is just the initial list. In the meantime, we agreed to pursue these as our common priority measures,” said Romualdez after attending the LECC meeting in preparation to the Legislative-Executive-Development Advisory Council (LEDAC).
“Under the leadership of Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, we are committed to expeditiously act on these measures. We will continue to work in harmony with the Senate and Cabinet members to pursue and realize President Duterte’s desire of ensuring a comfortable life for Filipinos,” said Romualdez, a lawyer and banker, as he reiterated that
the record time passage last Friday of the proposed 2020 P4.1 trillion national expenditure program (NEP) on third and final reading is also a priority measure of the Duterte Administration.
“The House leaders will exhaust all means possible to make sure that the Executive and the Legislative departments are always in one direction with regard to the version of the priority and certified bills filed in the 18th Congress. We do not want to put to waste all the resources, time and effort, which are normally spent in passing bills,” said Romualdez after attending the third “regular monthly meeting” to ensure a better shepherding of Pres. Duterte’s priority measures.
Aside from Romualdez, joining the small group meeting from the House of Representatives were Speaker Cayetano and Deputy Speaker and Camarines Sur Rep. LRay Villafuerte.
Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, Sens. Bong Go and Joel Villanueva, Finance Sec. Carlos “Sonny” Dominguez III, Labor Sec. Silvestre “Bebot” Bello III, and acting Budget Sec. Wendel Avisado, also attended the small group meeting.
Romualdez said the House leadership is “eyeing the passage of the common legislative measures before Congress adjourns this December.”
“The SSL 5 shows the President’s sincere ‘malasakit’ to the plight of
our civilian state workers. We will work very hard to ensure funding
for their salary increase,” Romualdez added.
He reiterated that the House leadership is forging tighter
coordination with the Palace and the Senate to avoid even a single
presidential veto of bills to be approved by the 18th Congress.
“This would smoothen the process and avoid the unfortunate experiences of having vetoed measures, especially those declared as priority measures by the Executive,” said Romualdez. “This is an effort to make sure that we have better linkages, synergy and coordination to fast-track, facilitate and harmonize measures, especially those actually spelled out by the President as priority measures.”
“We are eyeing zero veto for all bills to be approved by the Senate and the House. Hopefully, we can avoid any possibility of a Presidential veto by working closely with Cabinet members and Senate officials,” said Romualdez.