Editorial

Drilon Pushes Priority Economic Bills In Congress 

To Attract Investments

The 16th Congress is set to work on ways to streamline numerous tax incentives for businesses and tighten consumer protection as part of its legislative package geared towards encouraging investors, scaling up the business climate, enhancing market competition, and creating job opportunities, Senate President Franklin M. Drilon said.

Drilon met with House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte to firm up the legislative agenda. He said emphasis will be given to economic measures that “will maximize the country’s potential business strengths, and ensure the nation’s macroeconomic and fiscal sustainability and enhance the overall Philippine climate for greater business competition and foreign investments.”

“More investments can translate to the provision of more jobs and economic opportunities for our citizenry”, he stressed.

Up for discussion in Congress are measures calling for a Consolidated Investments and Incentives Code of the Philippines, and a bill proposing the Tax Incentives Management and Transparency Act.

“There is a need to reassess and harmonize numerous fiscal and non-fiscal incentives and subsidies to foreign and local investors to avoid overlapping and redundant incentives to cut unnecessary revenue loss,” explained Drilon.

If approved, such bills will enable better handling of the country’s fiscal incentives for investors to ensure a business–friendly environment which maintains the effective flow of appropriate taxes into public coffers–to everyone’s benefit, he noted.

Similarly, Congress is expected to deal with measures that will amend existing tax laws on mining activities in the country: “There is a need to study the practice of mining-intensive countries where higher excise taxes have not dissuaded investments at all, while making funding for government projects bigger.”

The country’s legislators will also address loopholes in the Built-Operate-Transfer law, Cabotage, and EPIRA laws. “There is a need to finetune the BOT law to close some policy gaps and aligned them with the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme to encourage the exploration of more effective forms of PPP projects, allow healthier competition, and fix interconnectivity issues,” Drilon explained.  

“Similarly, we must amend the Cabotage law to allow foreign-registered vessels to engage in coastwide trade in the country, thereby opening the market to competition, bringing down transportation cost by sea, and enabling the country to fully utilize supply chain products,” he further said.

“Also of importance is the amendment to the EPIRA to find ways to address the woes of our people with regard to the high electricity cost which the EPIRA is supposed to address,” Drilon stressed. 

Government institutions related to finance and the economy are also in the line for massive reforms – bills filed in the current Congress propose amendments of BSP to solidify its supervisory and regulatory powers, while more than one priority bill has gunned for the systemic overhaul of the Bureau of Customs.

“We are looking at restructuring important institutions to halt the economic damage from rampant money laundering, smuggling and other financial crimes in the country,” said the Senate President.

However, the Senate leader said that they “have not forgotten our overarching goal of making the economic growth we aspire for to be inclusive of most possible socio-economic sectors.” 

Educational Services

Various bills that would provide support to financially-challenged students nationwide, and institutionalized open and distance education in high schools and colleges are among the leading measures Congress is committed to tackle and pass in the 16th Congress, according to Senate Pres. Franklin M. Drilon.

“The improvement of our education system remains as one of our most pertinent legislative agenda and these proposed measures are designed to widen the reach of delivery of educational services across major deterrents such as poverty and logistical difficulties,” he pointed out.

According to the Senate chief, the priority bills are the institutionalization of distance learning system in secondary and tertiary levels, the establishment of an open high school system for out-of-school youth and the formation of a national student loan program available for underprivileged students nationwide.

Drilon noted several measures which seek to “institutionalize the availability of open and distance learning system for secondary and tertiary levels of public education.”   

Under open learning systems, students will acquire their education via the use of different forms of media and learning technologies following approved curriculum, while distance learning programs permit the accomplishment of education through approved self-instructional materials and independent study methods.    

“The presence of several bills filed in Congress confirm the potential of alternative learning programs to address socio-economic, geographical and physical barriers which plague our conventional classes,” Drilon said, as he confirmed that a consolidated, encompassing version of an alternative learning systems bill is “in the works.”

“We need to make education in the Philippines more available and closer to the youth by all possible means to increase enrollment levels in high school and college,” he added.

Congress will deal with the implementation of student loan program across the entire country “to provide financial support for underprivileged students in paying for their tuition and subsistence allowance,” Drilon stressed.

There are students who are close to finishing college, but would eventually drop out due to financial limitations, and “it is therefore for the government to establish a national financial support system –backed with sufficient funding– that students can avail of in times of need,” he added.

“We are confident that the two chambers will be able to pass these relevant bills during the 16th Congress. We would implement a coordinated and synchronized legislative strategy to maximize our legislative performance,” said Drilon who previously met with House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. to firm up their legislative agenda. /MP