"The current leadership has been productive and effective."
"The current leadership has been productive and effective."
Don't look now, but it is clear that the House of Representatives in the 18th Congress under the leadership of Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano has emerged as the more productive chamber in the bicameral Congress.
Why do we say so? The House acted swiftly on President Duterte’s tax reform agenda, passed a national budget in record time and became both a proactive and reliable partner of Malacañang in the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many in the current House members are young and offer a fresh perspective on politics. Even the House Speaker is relatively young compared to his predecessors. Cayetano works even on weekends and holidays, setting an example that he expects his colleagues in the House to emulate.
House hearings are now conducted with no grandstanding traditional politicians, or trapos, unlike in the past. The Senate, however, seems to be its exact opposite. Some senators seem to love the sound of their voices every chance they get.
The current House leadership has been more proactive as well.
Take, for example, how it acted swiftly after the eruption of Taal volcano. It moved to assist in the government’s rehabilitation efforts by developing a holistic plan for the cities and municipalities in Batangas, Cavite, and Laguna affected by the eruption. Only after Cayetano announced this rehab plan did Senate President Vicente Sotto III urge his colleagues to craft its own for the victims of the eruption in Batangas.
When the country faced the COVID-19 outbreak in March, the House created the ad hoc Defeat COVID-19 committee which conducted several hearings on how best the government can respond to the public health crisis. The hearings tackled the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) under the Bayanihan 1 Law; the government's health and science-based responses to the pandemic; and proposed measures to restart the economy battered by the health crisis. Parallel efforts were started by the Senate only in May, when it constituted itself into a committee of the whole and conducted marathon hearings on the government’s response to the pandemic.
The House also moved decisively to push the administration's tax reform agenda.
The House passed all pending tax reform measures last year. These include the reforms in the corporate tax system, previously known as the Corporate Income Tax and Incentives Rationalization Act (CITIRA), now renamed the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act (CREATE); the property valuation reform bill; and the Passive Income and Financial Intermediaries Act (PIFITA). The Senate, on the other hand, has not yet passed even one of these measures, despite Duterte's appeal to Congress twice in his two last SONAs to have these measures approved.
The CREATE bill should have been passed before the Congress adjourned sine die in June. The House has already committed to adopt the Senate version of this modified corporate tax reform measure, which the Department of Finance (DOF) hoped would provide the private sector its largest stimulus package to help them cope with the economic fallout from the pandemic. The CREATE bill provides for an outright reduction in the corporate income tax of 5 percentage points—from 30 to 25 percent, and 1 percent thereafter until the rate reaches 20 percent by 2027. The CREATE bill seeks to free up to P42 billion in business capital this year to aid in the recovery of businesses, especially micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
Despite the support for CREATE by economists, former DOF secretaries, and business organizations, the Senate failed to pass it in June.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said the business sector would have started to enjoy the benefits of CREATE in the second half of 2020, which also included an extended net operating loss carryover (NOLCO) for 2020 of five years for non-large taxpayers, and an improved incentives system, had the Senate approved the bill in June.
Why is the Senate taking its own sweet time on this measure, which requires no appropriation? We really don't know. What we know is that this bill stands to benefit enterprises that should have long graduated from being recipients of incentives by maintaining their status quo for up to nine years.
This is ample proof that the House has done its job of passing legislation that responds to actual and pressing needs is its approval of various bills.
These include the postponement of the May 2020 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections; establishment of Malasakit Centers; restructuring the Excise Tax Rates on Alcohol, Heated Tobacco, and Vapor Products; creation of the National Academy of Sports; the Salary Standardization Law of 2019, which increased the salary of teachers and nurses; and the creation of the Department of Filipinos Overseas and Foreign Employment.
Many of the provisions in the P16.5.5 billion Bayanihan To Recover As One Act (Bayanihan 2), were adopted from the House version. These provisions include, among others, the retroactive application effective February 1, 2020 of the P100,000 hazard duty pay for health workers and P1 million compensation for the surviving family members of health workers in case of their death from COVID-19.