Congress in 2023 handed a number of precedence payments of the administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.
Five of these that are anticipated to affect the lives of Filipinos are the next:
1. New Agrarian Reform Emancipation Act
The New Agrarian Reform Emancipation Act condones and writes off greater than P57 billion price of debt of agrarian reform beneficiaries on account of unpaid amortizations, curiosity, penalties, and surcharges arising from the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform program and different agrarian reform packages and legal guidelines.
In addition, the regulation requires the Department of Agrarian Reform to challenge a Notice of Condonation to be annotated to the Emancipation Patents and Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOA).
The regulation prohibits the sale, switch, or conveyance of awarded lands to a different besides by way of hereditary succession or be the topic of conversion, for 10 years from the issuance of the CLOA.
Its authors included the three opposition lawmakers from the Makabayan bloc: House Minority Leader France Castro of the ACT Teachers celebration listing, House Assistant Minority Leader Arlene Brosas of Gabriela, and Raoul Manuel of Kabataan party-list.
“As one of the authors of the New Agrarian Reform Emancipation Act, in the short term, I see that it would boost the earnings of farmers and increase their productivity. [But] condoning loans of farmers, which is long overdue…it should not stop there. The next move should be to go after vast tracts of agricultural lands that are owned and controlled by private landholdings that were exempted from the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, like haciendas or lands that were converted,” Castro advised GMA News Online in a textual content message.
Castro referred to as on President Marcos to challenge a moratorium on agricultural land conversion by Executive Order (EO) and nullify earlier EO easing the necessities for land conversion.
“If these measures are done, alongside agricultural production support and subsidies, then the farmers can start producing more crops and we can be on our way to food self-sufficiency,” Castro added.
2. Maharlika Investment Fund Law
The Maharlika Investment Fund regulation establishes a sovereign wealth fund from the sources of state-run companies, in addition to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR), and different approved sources, for funding ventures and in the end to extend public funds for nation-building.
The Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) and the Development Bank of the Philippines are mandated to contribute to the MIF whereas the fund is managed by the Maharlika Investment Corporation. “We are confident foreign investors and companies will consider investing in our own sovereign fund, and they have expressed keen interest in doing so in our dialogues with them during President Marcos’s trips abroad,” Speaker Martin Romualdez advised GMA News Online on why the administration was assured that the MIF would acquire floor by way of investments.
“The President is the country’s best salesman. He assures investors that their money will be safe with our sovereign fund,” he added.
The Speaker, nevertheless, admitted that the majority of the funding for the federal government’s precedence initiatives, particularly for social providers, would nonetheless be primarily sourced from the annual nationwide finances as a result of the funding yields will take time.
“As for funding for social services from the Maharlika Investment Fund, that will come when our sovereign fund makes enough income that it can remit part of it to the national government as budgetary support. For now, the principal source of funding for social services like education and health is the annual national budget,” Romualdez stated.
“We will continue to appropriate enough funds in the budget to meet the social service and infrastructure requirements of our people,” he added.
Nueva Ecija Rep. Ria Vergara, the chairperson of the House Committee on Social Services, stated the nation’s BBB+ credit standing from S&P Global Fitch Rating and the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) progress through the third quarter of the yr rising to five.9% from 4.3% three months again ought to encourage confidence amongst potential Maharlika wealth buyers.
“Coupled with the limitations and safeguards placed by the law to ensure that the fund adheres to good governance, transparency, and accountability as intended by the law, I am positive that private financial institutions and corporations will be comfortable in investing in the MIF,” Vergara advised GMA News Online.
Vergara stated the MIF regulation supplies that every one funding actions should be inside the specified allowable listing, that every one paperwork pertaining to the investments are topic to the general public’s proper to freedom of knowledge, and that the funding insurance policies, pointers, methods, and actions are additionally to be made obtainable to the general public.
She stated the House of Representatives and Senate heeded the general public’s considerations over the proposed MIF and eliminated two pension funds repository Government Service Insurance System and Social Security System as sources of funding.
“These provisions make the MIF’s probability of success high and the risk, which is inevitable in every wealth fund whether it be sovereign or private-owned, be more controlled, more manageable, and sounder,” Vergara stated.
In the occasion that the MIF achieves its goal, the lawmaker stated the funds must be utilized in authorities packages and infrastructure for the agriculture sector akin to, however not restricted to, constructing irrigation services, and investing in farming innovation and expertise.
“These will not only help resolve the present challenges in stabilizing food prices and ensuring availability of supply of agricultural products but would also improve our country’s production capabilities, therefore strengthening our food security and removing our dependence on imports,” Vergara stated.
3. Public-Private Partnership Code
The PPP Code states clearer and simplified authorities laws aimed toward guaranteeing quicker implementation of essential authorities infrastructure initiatives that are cost-efficient by way of the next provisions:
permitting native authorities items to undertake their PPP initiatives with out restrict on prices, supplied there is no such thing as a comparable nationwide authorities enterprise
the nationwide authorities’s PPP challenge price lower than P15 billion will probably be permitted on the degree of the PPP Center, until such approval is overturned by the Investment Coordination Committee of the National Economic and Development Authority (ICC-NEDA)
initiatives costing above P15 billion, however, will probably be permitted by the NEDA Board, upon prior advice by the ICC-NEDA.
House Committee on Ways and Means chairperson and Albay lawmaker Joey Salceda, one of many principal authors of the measure, stated the passage of the PPP Code is a transfer in direction of a rules-based, clear, and environment friendly governance that will cowl as a lot as P23 trillion infrastructure funding hole of the nation.
“We expressly empowered any and all government agencies and instrumentalities to undertake PPPs. We raised the threshold for NEDA-ICC approval to P15 billion, and for local government units whose PPPs do not require any national government undertaking, the sky’s the limit,” Salceda stated after Marcos signed the invoice into regulation this month.
The similar PPP Code additionally states that the unique proponent standing is simply good for one yr upon acceptance by the company. The comparative problem, however, will probably be legitimate inside 90 days to 1 yr, with 30 days proper to match.
Salceda stated the PPP Code established a extra aggressive course of for solicited proposals by explicitly defining the profitable bid because the “most responsive bid.”
“The new PPP Code does not suffer from longstanding defects of ambiguity. It is clearly specified which undertakings are not allowed. The process is outlined,” Salceda added.
4. The Regional Specialty Centers Act
The Regional Specialty Centers Act goals to ascertain facilities in Department of Health hospitals, in addition to government-owned and managed medical services in each area, which is able to give attention to specialised medical therapy.
These regional specialty facilities will provide the next:
- cardiovascular care
- renal care and transplant middle
- lung care
- most cancers care
- mind and backbone care
- neonatal care
- burn care
- geriatric care
- trauma care
- eye care
- psychological well being
- dermatology care
- toxicology
- orthopedic middle
- bodily rehabilitation medication
- infectious illnesses and tropical medication.
Senator Bong Go, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and principal sponsor of the invoice, stated the regulation would carry important specialty medical providers nearer to Filipinos, particularly the indigent sufferers dwelling outdoors Metro Manila the place most, if not all, of the nationwide specialty facilities are discovered.
This will likewise assist in decongesting the present nationwide specialty facilities just like the National Center for Mental Health in Mandaluyong City, the Philippine Heart Center and the National Kidney and Transplant Institute that are each positioned in Quezon City.
Go stated Congress deemed it smart to not put up new regional specialty hospitals, which was a “more expensive approach.”
Citing the Department of Health’s knowledge, Go stated the estimated whole price for the regulation’s implementation from 2024 to 2028 is at P76 billion which will probably be sourced primarily from the annual General Appropriations Act.
“Being a multi-year goal, Congress will be allocating annually the necessary funding for these regional specialty centers. For the fiscal year 2024, Congress approved the initial P10-billion fund for the establishment of these centers in DOH hospitals,” Go advised GMA News Online.
Since there are already current specialty facilities in a number of authorities hospitals just like the Southern Philippines Medical Center, Go stated the federal government ought to endeavor to develop, improve, and produce such providers to different current regional hospitals across the nation.
Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva stated Congress is dedicated to allocate sufficient funding for this regulation regardless of the very restricted sources of the federal government.
“Although the government’s annual funding is small to realize all of our aspirations as a nation, we make sure every budget cycle that the government’s scarce resources will be able to help the most people,” Villanueva advised GMA News Online.
5. Internet Transactions Act
After the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns prompted Filipinos to depend on on-line transactions, Congress pushed for a measure that can defend them from losing their hard-earned cash to bogus on-line sellers.
Republic Act 11967 or the Internet Transactions Act seeks to spice up the nation’s digital financial system by defending shoppers from on-line scammers.
Sen. Joel Villanueva stated the aim of the regulation is to ease the burden in submitting complaints in opposition to scammers or fraudulent on-line sellers.
“According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, in 2022, 9.4% of our GDP came from digital economy and during the height of the pandemic, we really saw the potential of this sector to help grow our economy, create jobs, and boost productivity, especially of MSMEs,” Villanueva advised GMA News Online.
“We hope that the impact of this law will be felt immediately, even though we are still in the transition period of 18 months for online merchants to fully comply with the provisions of the law,” he added.
Under the regulation, an E-Commerce Bureau will probably be established below the Department of Trade and Industry.
Apart from formulating insurance policies and packages to make sure the sturdy and dynamic improvement of e-commerce, the bureau can be tasked to obtain and refer business and client complaints on web transactions to the suitable authorities company.
32 measures signed
Two years into the nineteenth Congress, Marcos had already signed 32 legal guidelines produced by the House of Representatives and the Senate.
“All of these measures were carefully crafted to benefit Filipinos and the nation. A majority of these new laws are what the administration of President Marcos Jr. laid down either in his latest SONA or in the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council or LEDAC,” Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri stated.
Before 2023 ends, there are 29 payments which might be awaiting Marcos’ signature, together with the “No Permit, No Exam” invoice, measure increasing the Centenarians Act of 2016, proposed New Passport Law, Magna Carta of Filipino Seafarers, Ease of Paying Taxes invoice, measure strengthening and revitalizing the salt trade within the Philippines, and the Tatak Pinoy invoice. —LDF/NB/RSJ, GMA Integrated News
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
