The House Committee on Appropriations has approved a consolidated bill which seeks to fast-track vaccine purchase by allowing local government units to directly buy doses from pharmaceutical firms.
House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco filed a third version of the Bayanihan bill, seeking to secure an additional stimulus package amounting to ₱420 billion that will help revive the pandemic-battered economy.
Speaker Lord Allan Velasco
(Lord Allan Velasco’s Office / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
Velasco said the adoption of WTE technologies in the treatment and disposal of solid waste is expected to provide solution to filling up of landfills in the country.
“The huge amount of waste that we produce threatens to overwhelm our landfills and create worse garbage disposal problems,” Velasco said.
He added: “Before this happens, we must now look for cleaner and more sustainable method to treat and dispose of solid waste, such as WTE.”
Last year, the House approved on third and final reading House Bill (HB) 7829 or the proposed Waste Treatment Technology Act with close to 200 lawmakers, including Velasco, signing on as principal authors.
DILG Undersecretary and spokesperson Jonathan Malaya (PCOO / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
The Inter-Agency Task Force on Constitutional Reform (IATF-CORE) which Malaya is the chairman noted that Congress should vote separately on the proposed amendments to the economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution because of its bicameral nature.
With both chambers having separate membership, leadership, and rules, Malaya insisted that voting “separately is ideal and doable.’’
Malaya added that a legislative action through a Constituent Assembly of both houses would be the most expeditious manner of changing the Constitution.
In practice, Malaya maintained that Constitutional Conventions are not meant for amendments but are convened by Congress to draft an entirely new Charter, on the assumption that the existing Charter must be changed wholesale.
Cagayan de Oro City 2nd District Rep. Rufus Rodriguez took a hard stance Thursday on Senate President Vicente Sotto lll’s declaration that amending the 1987 Constitution is “next to impossible” under the current 18th Congress.