Leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives have agreed on priority bills to pass between the next few weeks until mid-next year, starting with the proposed 2021 national budget.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III confirmed that he and other Senate leaders met with their counterparts in the House on Thursday and "discussed the possible priority measures we can pass within the year and in the first six months of 2021."

"We also discussed the budget and regular meets to make sure we are on the same page on important issues," Sotto told reporters.

Sotto met with newly-elected House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco in a hotel in Mandaluyong City. Also present were Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto, Senate finance committee chair Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara,

Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri and Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, who both joined the meeting via teleconference.

Velasco, on the other hand, was joined by House Majority Leader Martin Romualdez, House committee on appropriations chair Eric Yap, and House Minority Leader Joseph Stephen Paduano.

Sotto said their top priority would be the P4.5-trillion General Appropriations Bill (GAB), which the House recently forwarded to the Senate. The Senate is se to start plenary debates on the bill upon their resumption of session on Monday, November 9.

Besides the GAB, the Senate also committed to pass the proposed Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Act and the Financial Institutions Strategic Transfer (FIST) bill, both certified as urgent by President Duterte as part of the government's COVID-19 recovery programs.

"There are lulls while budget bicam is ongoing, we might be able to get it through," Sotto said.

On legislating the creation of new government line agencies, such as the proposed Department of Disaster Resilience and the Department of Overseas Filipino Workers, Sotto said the matter was just brought up but not thoroughly discussed.

The Senate leader has long maintained the position that proposals for new government departments should go with a rightsizing program to prevent overlapping functions and the "bloating" of the bureacracy.

"I'm still batting for a government rightsizing measure," Sotto said after their meeting.

Meanwhile, Sotto said the Senate supports the proposed Magna Carta for Barangays, but "will check on the budget necessary" for the measure. The bill, another measure in the agenda of the Duterte administration, seeks the grant of incentives and other benefits for barangay workers.