News from the House of Representatives has been dominated lately by the dispute between Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano and Rep. Lord Allan Velasco.
The proposed P4.506-trillion national budget was being discussed section by section in the House this week, with plans to approve it by October 14, after which it would be sent to the Senate for its own discussion and approval. After resolving any differences between the House and Senate bills, the final National Appropriation bill should be approved by Congress before the end of the year.
Because of the Cayetano-Velasco controversy, there was fear that the speakership dispute may erupt again anytime and House approval of the budget bill would not be achieved by October 14. Senate President Vicente Sotto III expressed his concern that the House may not be able to meet its own October 14 deadline should the Cayetano-Velasco dispute explode into the open anew.
The situation suddenly changed Tuesday afternoon when the House unexpectedly approved the budget bill, after which it suspended its sessions until November 16. There will now be no October 14 turnover, as Velasco had hoped. The speakership dispute continues undiminished.
The dispute has pushed aside many other positive developments in the House, among them Marikina Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo’s criticism of PhilHealth for projecting a P96-billion deficit for next year while expecting only 5 percent of its expected collections from paying members. Suspecting that PhilHealth is feigning losses to get more funds from Congress, she called on the agency to conduct actuarial studies before it embarks on any new project.
For PhilHealth, essentially an insurance company, to conduct actuarial research had earlier been proposed by Quezon Rep. Angelina Tan, head of the House Committee on Health, who also leads in a pioneering effort to legislate the creation of a Virology Institute of the Philippines to conduct research on viruses and help in the development of Philippine vaccines.
One other congressman of note, Rep. Jericho Nograles of Puwersa ng Bayaning Aleta, in a hearing on the proposed budget of the Department of Transportation, asked why it was granting allegedly favorable concessions to Megawide Construction Corp. which, Nograles charged, may not have the financial base for its maintenance service contract with the P107-billion NAIA expansion project.
There are indeed many important issues before this 18th Congress which, we hope will be resolved and decided in the remaining session days. At any time, however, all of its important work on so many measures may have to be set aside because of the dispute.
The budget issue has been settled, thus assuring much-needed funds for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but the leadership fight continues and thus uncertainty remains on so many other measures still pending in the House.