A Single roadmap for House and Senate

SEN. Richard Gordon proposed Wednesday that the House and the

Senate hold a workshop to determine the priority legislative agenda of the

Fourteenth Congress.

“I will file a resolution calling for a workshop as soon as the regular

session starts,” Gordon said in a roundtable with Times editors and

reporters.

He said the determination of the priority legislative agenda is like a road

map to guide congressmen and senators throughout the three years of the

Fourteenth Congress.

Sen. Edgardo Angara and Gordon had initiated a two-day caucus at the

Philippine Plaza Hotel in the Thirteenth Congress, but this involved only

senators.

“I think we should now involve the congressmen also in setting our priority

agenda so we could move along the same direction,” Gordon said.

He said the workshop could last two to three days, with experts from

government, the academe and the private sector as resource persons.

“The workshop will also be of great help to the newly elected

senators or congressmen in performing their work,” Gordon added.

He said the performance of the Fourteenth Congress could be gauged from

its treatment of the identified legislative priority concerns.

He admitted that not all of the priority concerns were fully addressed by

the previous Congress, but he stressed that those enacted were of top quality.

Among these “quality” laws are the Reformed Value-Added Tax, the Sin

Tax law, the law abolishing the death penalty, the Biofuels Act, the Juvenile

Justice System, the Automated Election System, the Lending Companies Act

and the extension of the life of Special Purpose Asset Vehicles Act.

Gordon calls for workshop to set course of 14th Congress

BY EFREN L. DANAO

Senior Reporter

Manila Times

19 July 2007