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By Efren L. Danao, Senior
Reporter
Senate President Pro-Tempore Jose
“Jinggoy” Estrada and Sen. Francis Escudero had authored the
most number of bills that have reached the Senate plenary in the
recently concluded First Regular Session of the Fourteenth Congress.
Data gathered by The Manila Times
showed that Estrada was the author of 27 bills that had been
consolidated into various committee reports, while Escudero had 23.
A bill that is incorporated in a committee report stands a chance of
becoming a law. Of the 2,409 bills filed in the First Regular
Session, only 268 had been included in the 78 committee reports that
were the product of public hearings on related bills.
Estrada and Escudero were joined
at the Top Five by Sen. Loren Legarda with 19 bills, Senate
President Manuel Villar with 17, and Sen. Pia Cayetano, 16.
Among the more notable bills of
Estrada acted upon by the Senate were the Magna Carta of Women, the
Migrant Workers Hospital, amendment of the Civil Service Code,
expansion of the Special Program for the Employment of Students,
Renewable Energy, the Socialized and Low-Cost Housing Loan
Restructuring Program and the amendment of the Electric Power
Industry Reform Act.
Most of the bills of Escudero
were incorporated in reports passed by the Committees on Justice and
on Ways and Means, which he heads. These two committees were also
the most productive in the First Regular Session with 24 and nine
committee reports, respectively. The output of these two committees
is more than one-third of the 78 committee reports churned out by
the 35 standing committees of the Senate in the First Session.
Among the more noteworthy bills
of Escudero are: Photo and Video Voyeurism, Decriminalization of
Vagrancy, Anti-Torture Act, Private Property Rights, Amusement Tax
Exemption, Anti-Child Pornography Act, Exemption of Minimum Wage
Earners from Paying Income Tax, Good Conduct Time Allowance for
Prisoners, Presentation of Suspects in Press Conference, and the
Judiciary Retirement Act.
Legarda authored 19 bills that
have been included in the committee reports, most of them pertaining
to either the environment or economic affairs. Among her bills were
the Mount Banahaw-San Cristobal Protected Landscape, the Apo Reef
National Park, the La Mesa Dam Protected Watershed and Tubbataha
Reefs, all jointly with Senators Cayetano and Jamby Madrigal. She is
also one of the authors of the Magna Carta of Women, Domestic
Adoption, Educators in Basic Education, UP Charter, Tourism Act of
2008, Environmental Awareness Education, Pre-Need Code, the Barangay
Livelihood and Skills Training Centers and the Magna Carta for
Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
Villar had shown that he could
manage Senate affairs and still be productive in legislation. He had
17 bills incorporated in various committee reports to his credit,
including the Migrant Workers Hospital, Scholarship Grant to Family
Members of Uniformed Personnel, Amusement Tax Exemption,
Environmental Education, Cell Phone Theft, Exemption of Minimum Wage
Earners from Payment of Income Tax, the Cooperative Code, the UP
Charter, the extension of the Agriculture Competitiveness
Enhancement Fund, and the Magna Carta of Micro, Small and Medium
Enterprises. Legarda authored 12 bills that have been included in
the committee reports on the expanded student employment program,
the Barangay Livelihood and Skills Training Centers, Pre-Need Code,
amendment of the law on prostitution, Renewable Energy, the La Mesa
Watershed Reservation Act, decriminalizing vagrancy, UP Charter,
Environmental Awareness Education, Kasambahay, Quality Affordable
Medicine Act, and the Magna Carta for Micro, Small and Medium
Enterprises.
Cayetano, the chairman of the
Committees on Environment and on Health, had 16 bills that were
incorporated in committee reports on Magna Carta of Women, Universal
Newborn Hearing Screening and Screening Act, Picture-based Health
Warning on Tobacco Products, Tobacco Products Packaging, Migrant
Workers Hospital, UP Charter, Environmental Education, Promoting
Breastfeeding, Cheaper Medicines Act and the Renewable Energy Act,
among others.
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