Deputy Speaker and Isabela Rep. Antonio Albano on Monday clarified that the daily press briefings at the House of Representatives are not meant to attack anyone or any institution, but were conceived as early as June 2022.
Albano noted that the objective of the briefings is to update the public on the accomplishments and status of legislative work in the chamber.
“These daily press cons are created, so that the people will know what the lower house of Congress is doing, what we’ve achieved, what we’ve accomplished, and what is pending for us to work on for the good of our beloved country and our people,” he added.
Albano denied insinuations made by some of their counterparts in the Senate that they were organizing such press conferences to criticize other lawmakers or their political enemies.
“These daily press conferences are never about bashing anyone or any institution, contrary to what some of our counterparts accuse us of doing in the Senate. We also are not doing these daily press cons to propagate nefarious and unhealthy false news to our people,” he said.
Deputy Majority Leader Ramon Nolasco Jr. of Cagayan and Assistant Majority Leader Mikaela Angela Suansing of Nueva Ecija, also present during the press briefing, said the House of Representatives has done its part to pass priority legislations under President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.
They said that 94.7 percent of all the bills discussed in the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) and the State of the Nation Address (SONA) have already been exhaustively deliberated and passed by the House of Representatives, including the passage of 472 local bills.
Albano said this is exactly the information that they, as lawmakers, need to disseminate to the public in their daily press briefings.
“In unanimity, together with our entire colleagues, joined by our hard-working Speaker, we therefore appeal to all people and especially the media, to listen and fairly inform and pass the crucial information that we release in these daily press cons,” he said.