Velasco confident priority bills will be passed into law before year ends

Speaker Lord Allan Velasco expressed confidence Friday that the remaining priority bills of the Duterte administration would be passed into law before the year ends.

In a statement, Velasco said the five priority bills, earlier identified by the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC), include the proposed Philippine Virology Institute Act, Center for Disease Control Act, Amendments to the Continuing Professional Development Act of 2016, Bureau of Immigration Modernization Act, and National Housing Development Act.

"Definitely, matatapos naman po natin ito before the year ends dahil kitang-kita naman po natin na ang Kongreso, ang Kamara po pag crunch time po eh nagdedeliver naman po," Velasco said in a separate interview on GMA News' Unang Balita.

(Definitely we will finish this before the year ends because Congress is delivering its duty well, especially during crunch time.)

Aside from the passage of the priority bills, Velasco said the Congress aims to pass the 2022 budget on time.

Priority bills

The proposed Philippine Virology Institute aims to help the Philippines be prepared when a pandemic hits the country again in the future while the Philippine Center for Disease Control will be focusing on fighting infectious diseases.

The said institute will act as the premier research and development institution in the field of virology. On the other hand, the CDC will serve as the country’s principal health protection agency tasked to prevent, protect and manage the spread of diseases and other health threats originating domestically and internationally.

Meanwhile, the proposed Bureau of Immigration Modernization Act seeks to modernize, professionalize and improve the compensation of officials and personnel of the Bureau of Immigration while the proposed National Housing Development Act aims to significantly reduce the country’s housing backlog through continuous funding support for socialized housing.

The Continuing Professional Development Act of 2016 is a proposed law which will mandate Filipino professionals to take additional formal and non-formal learning before they can renew their licenses as well as identification cards.

According to Velasco, the chamber passed a lot of priority bills of the Duterte administration where some are still under deliberation in the Senate.

He said he is looking forward to the approval by the Senate of the proposed Internet Transactions Act and the creation of the Department of Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos.

Some of the priority bills that were already passed into laws include the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentive for Enterprises (CREATE) Act, Financial Institutions Strategic Transfer (FIST) Act, Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund Act, and Bayanihan to Recover as One Act or Bayanihan 2. — RSJ, GMA News