Bayanihan III bill elevated to House plenary

THE House of Representatives began plenary deliberations on the proposed P405.6 billion Bayanihan to Arise as One law, known informally as Bayanihan III, with little more than a week remaining before Congress adjourns.

Legislators sponsored the measure to the House floor late Monday, after the measure was approved jointly by the House Committees on Economic Affairs and Social Services that morning.

“I appeal to the members of Congress (to) pass this swiftly because this is what we see that our people need,” AAMBIS-OWA Party-list Rep. Sharon S. Garin said during her sponsorship speech.

Congress resumed session on May 17, naming the passage of Bayanihan III as a top priority for approval before sine die adjournment on June 2. As of Monday, the bill has the support of 293 of the 300 members of the House of Representatives, who had signed on as co-authors.

Marikina City Rep. Stella Luz A. Quimbo, the bill’s original author, said during her plenary sponsorship, “I speak for all the authors of this measure when I declare our main objectives: We want the poor to have food on their tables and money in their pockets. We want businesses to survive. We want government to have the needed power to control the spread of COVID and achieve herd immunity. We want the most critically impacted sectors to arise, and with their contributions, along with our collective will and dynamism as a people, re-engage the engines of the national economy. Inclusiveness is the only path to true recovery.”

The bill contemplates giving out P1,000 each to the entire population of 108 million, regardless of social class or standing.

The bill will also seek to provide relief for workers displaced due to the pandemic; businesses whose operations were impacted by the economic downturn; areas hit by disasters; and allowances and aid for critical sectors affected by current restrictions on business operations.

Albay Rep. Jose Ma. Clemente S. Salceda said the bill can be funded.

“First, Bayanihan III already meets the constitutional requirement that the proposal be supported by funds to be raised by revenue proposed in the same bill. The question of presentation of certification of availability of funds is superfluous because the proposal meets the condition that a special appropriations bill be supported ‘by funds … to be raised by a corresponding revenue proposed therein,’” he said during his sponsorship speech to the plenary.

These funding sources include provisional advances by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to the National Government not exceeding 10% of the average income of the government between 2018 and 2020; expanding the minimum required remittances of government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs); and giving the President the authority to withdraw capital from GOCCs.

Ms. Quimbo said in a briefing Monday that the bill will also reallocate funds from the 2020 and 2021 national budgets but will not touch those on projects that are being implemented or have logged significant work in progress.

“We will realign funds from those that are not essential spending items such as discretionary travel,” she said, noting that one of the guiding principes is “not discontinue programs that are already fully implemented.”

The bill will also direct the National Economic Development Authority to create a long-term plan to develop economic resilience to prepare the economy for any future crisis. — Gillian M. Cortez