THE House of Representatives under Speaker Martin G. Romualdez has buckled down to work, and will continue to work, now that nearly all House committees have been constituted with respective chairpersons and members.
Romualdez, who represents Leyte’s 1st District, said he expects the chamber to get busier in the 19th Congress now that most of the lawmakers know their roles.
“I thank the House Deputy Speakers for helping hold the fort at the plenary, as well as Majority Leader Mannix Dalipe, senior Deputy Majority Leader Ferdinand Alexander Marcos, and the members of the Committee on Rules for assisting in the process of forming the House panels,” Romualdez, president of the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD) party, said.
Once constituted, House committees can hold hearings on filed House Bills (HBs) and other measures, which is among the initial steps in the legislative process.
During the House plenary sessions dated July 25 to 27 and August 1 to 3, a total of 2,877 measures have been referred to the various committees for deliberation.
The breakdown of the referred measures are as follows: HBs, 2,744; House resolutions (HR), 119; House joint resolution (HJR), seven; House concurrent resolution (HCR), five; and Resolution of both Houses (RBH), two.
Of the 64 standing committees in the House of Representatives, 50 have been designated with their respective chairpersons. All 64 of these panels have been given members.
Meanwhile, of the 15 special committees, 10 of them now have their respective chairpersons. Member-lawmakers have already been designated to all but one of these committees.
Arguably the busiest committee in the next few weeks will be the Committee on Appropriations, the main panel that scrutinizes the proposed national budget.
The precursor of the budget, called the National Expenditure Program (NEP), is expected to be submitted by Malacañang to the House of Representatives on the third week of August.
“Rest assured that the House will act immediately on the budget,” Romualdez said.
