New senators file first bills

MANILA, Philippines - On their first full day at work, five of the six new members of the Senate filed their first bills.

Senators Juan Edgardo Angara, Nancy Binay, JV Ejercito, Grace Poe and Cynthia Villar filed their proposed measures at the Senate yesterday, most of which were based on their advocacies and campaign promises.

Poe, who personally filed her first batch of bills yesterday, focused on her key advocacies of addressing hunger and nutrition of school children and promoting film tourism.

The daughter of the late king of Philippine cinema Fernando Poe Jr. said that the tourism industry in the country could get a boost from the promotion of film tourism.

“Film tourism is a growing phenomenon worldwide, fueled by both the growth of the entertainment industry and the increase in international travel. Several countries have already capitalized on the spiraling phenomenon of film tourism,” she said.

Binay said that she would make good on her campaign promise to increase the day care and feeding centers in the country, expand the immunization program and provide free medical and dental services to the poor.

These priorities of Binay could very well have been patterned after the similar programs of her father, Vice President Jejomar Binay, when he was still mayor of Makati City.

“This is the time I start working on the promises I made during the campaign. This is part of my advocacy and UNA’s legislative agenda that I promised to pursue,” Binay said.

Villar, for her part, filed bills seeking the creation of a Department of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and the six-year accelerated irrigation program.

“Considering the significant value they bring in to the economy and the specialized problems they face abroad, it is but appropriate that a separate department be created to cater to the special needs of the OFWs,” she said.

Villar said she wants to head the Senate committee on agriculture as well trade and commerce, which her husband, former senator Manuel Villar Jr., chaired.

Angara, just like his father former senator Edgardo Angara, focused on education.

Angara filed the proposed Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Higher and Technical Education Act, which seeks to strengthen, harmonize and refocus the existing student financial assistance programs to make them more targeted to the poor, giving priority to students whose families are beneficiaries of the government’s conditional cash transfer program.

Ejercito filed a total of 15 bills yesterday.

Sen. Paolo Benigno Aquino IV was the only neophyte who did not join the first-day bill filing bandwagon.

A statement released by Aquino’s office revealed that the youngest senator opted to spend his first official day as lawmaker visiting one of the poorest provinces, Zamboanga del Norte, to speak and consult with leaders there.

Aquino said that his visit to the province was part of his effort to file bills that are “rooted in and responsive to what our countrymen really need from government.”

The official start of the 16th Congress is on July 22 when the plenary sessions of the Senate and House of Representatives begin and when members of the two chambers meet together to listen to the State of the Nation Address of the President.

This does not mean though that the work of legislators would only start on July 22.

Yesterday marked the first day in office of the newly elected senators and among their first acts was to file their respective bills.

The order of filing was determined by a raffle where Sen. Vicente Sotto III was given the first slot.

It is inevitable that some senators would file bills of similar content and so by making the order of filing random, no one can claim to be the first to come up with a particular bill.

Sotto, as expected, filed bills related to the fight against illegal drugs, given his strong interest in this particular field.

A former head of the Dangerous Drugs Board, Sotto pushed for the creation of a special court known as the Dangerous Drugs Court.

Acting Senate President Jinggoy Estrada, who chaired the Senate committee on labor, employment and human resource development, filed a total of 15 bills yesterday, 10 of which focused on the concerns of employees, both in government and the private sector.

Sen. Francis Escudero made good on his campaign promise to pursue transparency in government by filing the bill that would make mandatory the issuance of waivers on secrecy of bank deposits by all government officials.

Sen. Loren Legarda also fulfilled her campaign promise to work on what she called the Pantawid Tuition program, which seeks to provide at least one college graduate for every family covered by the conditional cash transfer program of the government.

Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. filed a bill that would remove the controversial libel provision in the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. With Christina Mendez