Cabinet meeting to tackle 188 bills

MANILA, Philippines –  President Aquino is set to convene his entire Cabinet on Monday to discuss which of the 188 pieces of legislation submitted by officials and foreign business groups would comprise his administration’s priority programs.

Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. said the measures deemed as priority would be presented to the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) later this month. Of the 188 proposed measures, 147 came from Cabinet officials and 41 from the Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce.

Meanwhile, Presidential Communications Office for Operations Secretary Herminio Coloma said Monday’s meeting would be a “Cabinet workshop on legislative program” in preparation for the LEDAC.

In a statement, Ochoa said the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office received the proposals and that through the workshop, officials would hopefully be able to trim down the proposed legislation to 25, or five for each of the recognized critical areas.

“I hope that the workshop will bring about a legislative agenda that we can all support and that all of us will advocate for passage by Congress,” he said.

“The Cabinet members will present their legislative agenda relevant to their departments. This is not a Cabinet meeting in the traditional sense. It will be presided over by the executive secretary,” Coloma, for his part, told The STAR.

Coloma said their last full Cabinet meeting was in December. Vice Mayor Jejomar Binay will also attend the meeting.

Ochoa explained he would present five “critical areas” in identifying key legislation to boost the Aquino administration’s 16-point agenda. These are human development, infrastructure development, economic development, good governance and sovereignty, security and rule of law.

The executive secretary said he was hoping the workshop would help Cabinet members draw up not only a list of priority bills but also proposed amendments to dysfunctional laws or laws with conflicting provisions, by applying the principles of effectiveness and efficiency.

“By effectiveness, I refer to the impact of the proposal on achieving the sectoral objectives. This also refers to a determination of whether legislation is really needed, or other tools of government action would suffice in achieving a goal,” Ochoa said in his statement.

“By efficiency, I refer to the best use of resources. Proposals that need funding should be lined up in relation to other developmental concerns that also require funds,” he added.

In an interview with Joe Taruc over radio dzRH, Ochoa explained that in the Jan. 10 meeting, they would try to “reconcile and consolidate” the measures for “clustering” purposes.

Ochoa said the reproductive health bill issue would be among the government’s priorities, although discussions with stakeholders were ongoing.

Meanwhile, Aquino said, “We are not tackling the RH. We are still engaged in dialogue with various stakeholders, and I think I’ve not changed any portion of my position with regard to the matter. I will push through with the position I’ve stated for such a long time.”

He declined to identify other priority measures.

“Can I just ask for a little bit more time? If you’re asking to prioritize so many bills, in effect, you are not prioritizing any. So we are consolidating and prioritizing which ones we should really be pushing at this point in time,” he stressed.

But Aquino said the conditional cash transfer program as well as the need for greater coordination among Cabinet officials would likely be discussed in the meeting.

He reiterated his aversion to full Cabinet meetings, saying he does not want to waste the time of other secretaries who may have other more important tasks to do but are virtually locked in a meeting that does not involve their respective offices.

“As a general rule, we do not hold meetings for the entire Cabinet in one sitting because I really feel it’s such a waste of our time, if there’s a matter that is totally unrelated to their concerns yet they are made to sit the whole day waiting for their turn,” he said.

“They could have been attending to the concerns of their department if they were in their offices.” – Delon Porcalla, Aurea Calica, (The Philippine Star)