Romualdez: House to work double time

THE House leadership under Speaker Lord Allan Velasco will resume its hybrid plenary sessions this Monday and work double time to expedite the approval of the remaining priority legislative measures led by the P5.024 trillion national budget for 2022, House Majority Leader and Leyte 1st District Rep. Martin G. Romualdez said on Sunday.

“We resume our sessions on Monday from a two-week break triggered by the ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) in support of government efforts to stop the surge of COVID-19 cases. Our primary concern is the immediate passage of the 2022 national budget,” said Romualdez, chairman of the House committee on rules.

“This is a call of duty and we are committed to respond to President Rodrigo Duterte’s request to approve next year’s budget to defeat COVID-19, help Filipinos living below the poverty line, protect people on the frontline, and map out other contingency measures,” added Romualdez, president of the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (CMD).

Velasco said the House has to work double time on pending measures that it should have already taken up had the National Capital Region (NCR) not been placed under the strictest quarantine classification for two weeks.

“We will tackle as many bills and resolutions as possible to make up for the time lost during the ECQ,” Velasco added.

The Speaker said the chamber is also anticipating the submission by the Executive Department of the National Expenditure Program (NEP), which contains the proposed P5.024-trillion national budget for 2022.

Once the NEP is received by Congress, Velasco said the House committee on appropriations, chaired by ACT-CIS party-list Rep. Eric Yap, will begin the budget deliberations as soon as possible.

“We are ready to carry out our constitutional duty of carefully scrutinizing the NEP and eventually pass a national budget that is truly reflective and responsive to the needs of Filipinos as COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on people’s lives and the economy,” Velasco said.

Last August 2, the House leadership decided to suspend plenary sessions while the NCR was under ECQ from August 6 to 20.

During the two-week lockdown period, all meetings were held via videoconferencing and congressional offices were closed. Only Secretariat personnel with extremely essential tasks were allowed to report physically to the office.

Such measures, according to Velasco, were necessary as authorities tried to contain a fast-spreading outbreak of the highly infectious Delta coronavirus variant in NCR and other regions across the country.

A recent memorandum issued by Secretary General Mark Llandro Mendoza provides that the House will resume plenary sessions on August 23 under the hybrid platform.

The sessions shall be held from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., with only the Speaker or his duly designated deputies, the Majority Leader and Minority Leader or their respective representatives and a limited number of Secretariat personnel physically present inside the session hall. The rest of House members shall attend the session through videoconference.