Military pension, Department of Water among priority bills in SONA 2023
MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. on Monday presented the legislative branch with measures he wants passed, including some that were already mentioned in last year's State of the Nation Address.
Some measures that were identified as priorities in 2022 — like the creation of a Philippine Center for Disease Prevention and Control — did not get specific mentions in the president's 70-minute address this year. A mention in the SONA is not a requirement for passage — the Maharlika Investment Fund and SIM Card Registration Act hurdled Congress despite not being mentioned in the 2022 address — but give clues on the priorities for the year.
At the top of the short list of priority legislation that Marcos mentioned in his second SONA were related to the country's Medium-Term Fiscal Framework, including an excise tax on single-use plastics, value-added tax on digital services and an increase in the motor vehicle user's charge and road user's tax.
He also called on Congress to pass legislation to reform the pension system for uniformed personnel, which the finance department has warned has become unsustainable.
"The pension of the military and uniformed personnel is as important, urgent, and humanitarian as that of all other civilian Filipino employees," Marcos said earlier in his speech, acknowledging that the issue is a sensitive one for the security sector, which might be made to pay premiums to the fund.
"Efforts are underway to make it fully functional and financially sustainable," he said. "We are working closely with Congress to ease the transition from the old system to the new one, so as to be able to guarantee that no effects are felt by those in the uniformed services."
RELATED: These are the 19 measures Marcos Jr. asked Congress to pass in 2022
The president also pushed for amendments to the Fisheries Code, Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act and the Cooperative Code. He said that making it quicker and easier to form coopeartives will help farmers and fishers raise production and give them bargaining power in the market.
Making a return in 2023 was the call to create a Department of Water Resource Management, a proposal that also featured in SONAs given during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte.
"Considering its fundamental importance, water security deserves our special focus. Our efforts must not be scattershot, but rather, cohesive, centralized, and systematic," Marcos Jr. said, adding he hopes that the new Water Resources Management Office can lead the way to the creation of a separate water department.
Not mentioned in the SONA were mandatory membership in the Reserve Officers Training Corps and the passage of the National Land Use bill.
Mandatory ROTC was included in the priority bills identified by the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council, according to a report by BusinessMirror. The National Land Use bill, which has been pending in Congress since at least the 17th Congress, is not.
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