Bills galore: Senators move to fulfill campaign promises

MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – After months of promising to improve government policy and programs, newly elected senators get the chance to translate words into legislation.

Neophyte senators filed their first bills on Monday, July 1, reflecting their advocacies and aiming to fulfill their campaign promises. 

Sen Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara focused on education while Sen Cynthia Villar filed bills on overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and agriculture.

Senators Grace Poe and Nancy Binay personally filed their bills in the Senate on the first day of work.

READ: Grace Poe pushes for film tourism

The Senate allowed each senator to submit 5 bills in the first round of filing.

Angara’s bills are geared toward helping poor students, and new graduates. In a statement, the senator said the government should ensure equitable distribution and sustainability in education.

Here are Angara’s first bills:

• Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Higher and Technical Education Act – to strengthen, harmonize and refocus student financial assistance programs to target the poor, especially beneficiaries of the Conditional Cash Transfer Program
• Bill of Rights for New Graduates – to help new graduates find employment and business opportunities
• Bill granting discounts to poor post-secondary and tertiary students on food, medicine, transportation and expenses like tuition, miscellaneous and other school fees, books and school supplies
• Bill upgrading the minimum salary grade level of teachers
• Free College Entrance Exam Act – to remove the high cost of entrance exams for college admission

With his advocacy, the senator has said he wants to head the Senate Committee on Education but more senior senators also expressed interest in the panel. Sen Francis Escudero said he requested for the same committee.

Angara takes the Senate seat of his father, former Sen Edgardo Angara who finished his term last Sunday.

Sen Cynthia Villar, wife of former Sen Manny Villar, filed her own set of bills Monday:

• Proposed Department of Overseas Filipino Workers Act, a measure initially filed by her husband in the 15^th Congress
• Anti No-Permit, No Exam Policy Act
• Accelerated Irrigation Act
• Investments and Incentives Code
• Act providing an assistance program for OFWs in distress

Angara and Villar were both candidates of the administration slate Team PNoy in the polls. The ticket won 9 out of the 12 Senate seats.

Waivers for Chiz, PAGASA for Loren

Escudero, who ranked 4^th in the May polls, re-filed his measure requiring government officials to sign waivers on the secrecy of bank deposits.

The senator said the waiver must accompany the submission of Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs). He initially filed it in 2010 following the controversy over the military’s misuse of funds.

The bank waiver became a central issue in the impeachment trial of former Chief Justice Renato Corona in 2012, as part of calls for greater transparency in government.

Escudero’s bill requires all public officials except those serving in an honorary capacity to submit to the Ombudsman a waiver on bank secrecy over their accounts in and outside of the Philippines.

“This is a transparency move I had advocated for several years ago and it is still an advocacy I am bent to pursue in this fresh mandate given to me by the people,” he said in a statement.

Another re-elected senator, Loren Legarda, filed the following measures:

• Pantawid Tuition Program – to fund one college scholar for every poor family
• PAGASA Modernization bill – to fund the 3-year modernization of the weather bureau
• Magna Carta for School Teachers
• National Land Use bill
• Creation of the Philippine River Basin System Administration – to adopt the integrated river basin management approach as a comprehensive framework in developing and managing river basin systems

In a statement, the environment advocate said her bills in the 16^th Congress will focus on disaster resilience.

“The bleak reality is that the poor is hit hardest by disasters. Thus, we must strengthen our defenses against disasters and build community resilience.”

Legarda finished second to Grace Poe in the May polls. She is being considered to become the Senate President Pro-Tempore in the 16^th Congress.

Sen Alan Peter Cayetano also filed and re-filed bills on government transparency and children:

• Freedom of Information Act
• Orphaned, Abandoned, Neglected or Voluntarily Committed Children’s Welfare and Protection Act
• Trust Fund for the Abandoned, Neglected or Voluntarily Committed Children Act
• Iskolar ng Bayan Bill
• Additional Support and Compensation for Educators in Basic Education

Bongbong: Lower penalties for cyberlibel

Other Senate neophytes and veterans are also filing bills in the run-up to the start of the session on July 22.

Sen Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr filed a bill amending the controversial Cybercrime Prevention Act. Marcos wants to delete the provision imposing a higher penalty for online libel compared to that done in traditional media.

Marcos seeks to delete the sentence in the law that states, “The penalty to be imposed shall be one degree higher than that provided for by the Revised Penal Code, as amended and special laws, as the case may be.”

Human rights groups, media organizations, and Internet freedom advocates criticized the provision, saying it discriminates against netizens, and goes against efforts to decriminalize libel.

Marcos said, “If a crime is committed by, through and with the use of information and communications technologies, then the penalties provided under the present laws should be imposed accordingly and should not be increased solely on the ground that the crime was perpetrated through the use of cyberspace.” 

The Supreme Court issued and indefinitely extended a 120-day temporary restraining order on the implementation of the law. It has yet to hand down a ruling on petitions questioning the constitutionality of the act. – Rappler.com