SENATORS belonging to the minority bloc claimed credit for seven of 10 national bills passed by the Senate before members of Congress adjourned sessions last week for their traditional Lenten recess.
Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon said on Monday “the record will bear this out”, noting that five of seven bills that were approved on third reading, as well as two of three bills the senators passed on second reading, were “sponsored and authored” by members of the minority.
“The minority bloc has been working hard all this time,” said Drilon.
He reported that the approved bills initiated by the minority bloc include the Affordable Higher Education Act for All and the Free Internet Access in Public Places Act, filed by Sen. Paulo Benigno Aquino, expanded maternity leave law and the Mental Health Act, by Sen. Anna Theresia Hontiveros-Baraquel, the Philippine Food Technology Act and the Speech Language Pathology Act by Sen. Antonio F. Trillanes IV, and the adjustment to the present peso value of the amounts of fines imposed in the 87-year-old Revised Penal Code, by Drilon.
Once enacted into law, Drilon expects these bills “will have a direct positive impact” on people’s lives, adding that “we studied and prepared hard for these bills, so that they will withstand Senate scrutiny.”
“I am proud of our performance. We are the most productive group in the Senate. We did the lion’s share of the work in passing landmark legislation and bills of national significance,” Drilon added, citing collective efforts by members of the minority bloc, which also include his fellow Liberal Party Sens. Francis N. Pangilinan and detained Leila M. de Lima.
In taking credit for the Senate’s legislative output, Drilon explains “many members can become cosponsors or coauthors, but the legislators who conduct and actively participate in committee hearings and defend the measures on the floor are the ones who do the most work to get the bill passed.”
For his part, Drilon sponsored a Senate resolution concurring in the ratification of the Japan-Philippines Agreement on Social Security, which, he said, would give some 400,000 Filipinos in Japan access to various social-security benefits.
He added that their legislative performance only “proves that the minority was never and will never become a stumbling block to a productive Senate.”
Drilon asserted that minority senators, in being vocal against some policies of the Duterte administration, “should not be mistaken as obstructionists or as part of an imagined destabilization.”
“While we may criticize or oppose, the minority bloc has shown that it has also been supportive of legislative proposals that would benefit our country and our people,” Drilon added, as he challenged “those who would insist otherwise…to just work as hard as we in the minority bloc do”, even as he committed the minority senators would “continue working hard to steer the passage of important measures when Congress resumes session in May”.
Drilon disclosed that at the resumption of sessions, the Senate minority looks forward to pushing early passage of other pending bills, including the Coconut Farmers Industry Development Act, Sagip Saka Act, the Corporation Code, Pagkaing Pinoy Para sa Batang Pinoy, Philippine HIV and AIDS Policy Act, increase in allowances of government employees through the Cost and Living Allowance and Personnel Economic Relief Allowance and Teachers Supply Allowance Act.