House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano cited the overwhelming support of his colleagues in the 18th Congress and their shared vision to support the President’s legislative agenda for the “record-breaking output” of the House of Representatives.
In a press briefing held on March 10, Speaker Cayetano congratulated Majority Floor Leader Martin Romualdez for the “double, triple, quadruple” output of the 18th Congress so far.
Citing the statistics from the Committee on Rules, the Speaker noted that for the first six months of the 18th Congress, the number of measures approved in the Third Reading increased by more than 400%, compared with the output of the 17th Congress for the same period. In addition, the total measures approved on Second Reading as well as the number of Committee Reports filed have also increased by 300%.
In terms of approved bills in the Committees and in the Plenary, the records also show that there were 175 measures approved as of December compared with only 63 in the first six months of the regular session.
“We are committed to sustain the momentum of the productive and positive performance the House of the People has gained so far,” he added
Among those measures passed are priority bills mentioned by the President during his State of the Nation Address in 2019, including the establishment of the National Academy of Sports System, which was approved by the bicameral conference committee this week, and the creation of the Department of Filipinos Overseas and Foreign Employment, which was recently approved on Second Reading.
The proposed amendments to the Public Service Act, which will allow foreign nationals to own and operate public utilities in the Philippines and attract more foreign investors, was also passed on Third Reading yesterday, March 10, while the proposed GMRC and Values Education Act, principally authored by Cayetano, was ratified by both the Senate and the House of Representatives last week.
A number of tax reform measures that are responsive to the President’s Agenda were also passed by the House of Representatives during the said period, namely: the Passive Income and Financial Intermediary Taxation Act; the Corporate Income Tax and Incentive Rationalization Act; and the Real Property Valuation and Assessment Act.
In a period of six months, there were at least seven laws signed into law. These include: the Php 4.1-trillion General Appropriations Act of 2020; Salary Standardization Law of 2019 (SSL V); Malasakit Center Act; Postponement of the Conduct of the 2020 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections; the law increasing the excise tax rate on alcohol beverages and electronic cigarettes; the law extending the availability of the 2019 Appropriations to December 31, 2020; and the law designating the third Sunday of November every year as the National Day for Road Crash Victims and Their Families.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives recently gained an all-time high public satisfaction rating of 63% in the fourth quarter SWS survey.
From the 57% satisfaction rating of the House of Representatives in September 2019, it rose to +63 in December due to improvements in public satisfaction ratings in Mindanao, Balance Luzon, and the Visayas, combined with a steady score in Metro Manila.
“We are so humbled by the positive appreciation and recognition of the public on the work of the House Representatives as an institution.
It inspires us to work harder to achieve our targets and pursue crucial sustainable reforms to deliver a safe and comfortable life for the Filipinos,” Cayetano said in a statement.