The executive committee of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC), the consultative and advisory body to the Philippine President on priority programs and policies for economic growth, has come up with a list of urgent priority measures for Congress to act on.
According to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), tariff on imported rice and a National Transport Act were among the measures tagged by the executive committee as urgent in its first meeting under the current administration.
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and NEDA Director General Ernesto Pernia said that by identifying these measures as urgent, “we mean that we would want them passed into law possibly within the year.”
Labeled urgent is the proposed amendment to Republic Act (RA) No. 8178, or the Agricultural Tariffication Act of 1996, which put in place the rice import quota, or quantitative restriction (QR).
“We need rice tariffication because the import QR allowed by the World Trade Organization (WTO) has already ended. This is to prevent uncertainty as to what the demands of the WTO members will be following the lapse of the QR (quantitative restriction),” Pernia, who chairs the LEDAC executive committee, said in a statement.
“Earnings from the proposed law (amendment to RA 8178) will also be used to improve the productivity of farmers and the agriculture sector as specified in the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022, which aims to expand economic opportunities in agriculture,” Pernia said.
In 2014, the WTO allowed the Philippines to extend its rice import quantitative restriction until June 30, 2017 in exchange for tariff concessions on other goods. The Philippine government has decided to remove the quantitative restriction and instead plans to impose tariffs on rice. However, it has extended the quota and concessions until Congress passes amendments to RA 8178.
At the same time, the LEDAC executive committee endorsed the National Transport Act, which is seen to address traffic congestion in the country’s busiest areas. Both the Senate and Lower House have also tagged the proposed measure as a priority.
The executive committee likewise endorsed the Comprehensive Tax Reform measure, which was already certified as urgent by President Rodrigo Duterte last May. House Bill No. 5636, which contains the first batch of tax reforms being proposed by the administration, was approved on third and final reading last May.
Other bills identified as urgent are amendments to the Anti-Cybercrime Act; amendments to the National Irrigation Administration Charter; amendments to the Public Service Act; Budget Reform Act; Ease of Doing Business Act/Fast Business Permit Act; Government Procurement Reform Act Amendments; National Land Use Act; rightsizing of the national government; security of tenure bill; Unified National Identification System Act; and utilization of the coconut levy fund.
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