The PhilHealth issue, the suspicious deaths of high-profile inmates and granting the president authority to realign funds to combat the pandemic is on top of the Senate’s agenda when it resumes regular session after the Chief Executive’s fifth State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday.
Senate President Vicente Sotto III confirmed this in a recent interview as he reiterated that the upper chamber has no plans, on the other hand, of reviving talks about amending the Constitution in the last two years of the Duterte administration.
Sotto and Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson said they would be filing a resolution convening the Senate as a Committee of the Whole to probe the “systemic corruption” in the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), which include, among others, the new malevolent scheme that led to the release of millions worth of funds to a few unaccredited hospitals that register only one COVID-19 patient.
Sotto said the upper chamber would stick to holding hearings thru teleconferencing as a precautionary measure against COVID-19, even if it would be difficult to ascertain if resource persons invited to the hearings are evasive or are being truthful.
“But we have ways to prod resource persons invited to the hearings to tell the truth…participating in a teleconference doesn’t mean you can’t be cited for contempt,” Sotto also warned in a separate radio interview.
The Senate blue ribbon committee and committee on justice and human rights, both chaired by Sen. Richard Gordon, is also gearing for an in-depth probe into the questionable death of New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) inmate Jaybee Sebastian and several other high-profile convicts purportedly due to COVID-19.
“We cannot cheat the hangman. The Bureau of Prisons has not earned public trust. And they cannot, on their own, hindi sila dapat magsasabi eto namatay na ito, tapos na, you take our word for it. We cannot take their word that an inmate dies of COVID-19, we cannot treat that as Gospel truth,” Gordon said in a statement.
Gordon said the Senate will require further proof of their deaths and will look into the need to establish additional stringent protocols within the NBP to ensure transparency.
₱140-B COVID fund
Sotto also said senators are planning to pass on third and final reading the proposed ‘Bayanihan 2’ or the “Bayanihan to Recover as One Act” a day after Duterte’s SONA to speed up the country’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
The bill aims to allocate another P140-billion for various programs needed to address the health emergency and at the same time, help spur the economy.
As chairman of the Senate finance committee, Sen. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara said he is ready to tackle the measure once they resume sessions.
Just like Republic Act 11469 or the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, Angara said the proposed “Bayanihan 2” will provide the President the flexibility to realign funds in budgets of different agencies for the government’s COVID-19 response as soon as it is signed into law.
The Senate is also poised to finish plenary discussions on the proposed CREATE program (Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises), which aims to reduce corporate taxes and rationalize fiscal incentives to aid the recovery of businesses negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
CREATE, which is an enhanced version of the Corporate Income Tax and Incentives Reform Act (CITIRA) bill, also seeks to enhance the ability of the Philippines to attract highly desired investments.
Another legislative priority is the passage of the Medical Scholarship Act which Sen. Joel Villanueva, Senate labor and employment committee chair, hopes to respond to the country’s lack of doctors, nurses and other medical health care workers which was magnified by the current COVID crisis.
The Senate will also take up the measure seeking to amend the Public Services Act to open the telecommunications and transport sectors to foreign ownership.