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Posted on 11:13 PM, January 10, 2011

SOME 30 priority measures have been identified by Cabinet officials as priority measures needing action by Congress, a Malacañang official yesterday said.

The list, which the official said does not include new tax legislation, will be further trimmed to 25 before being submitted to President Benigno S. C. Aquino III for approval.

A Cabinet workshop yesterday resulted in the initial list, Sec. Ricky A. Carandang of the Presidential Communication Development and Strategic Planning Office said.

Mr. Aquino, he added, will decide what items will be included in Executive branch’s legislative agenda that is to be submitted during a Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) meeting later this month.

“The criteria [in choosing the bills] include [their] relevance to the [government’s] 16-point agenda,” Mr. Carandang said, along with “impact on the largest number of people” and “doability” — how easy it would be to get legislative approval.

Mr. Aquino’s “Social Contract with the Filipino People” seeks to address poverty by weeding out graft and corruption in the bureaucracy and creating jobs, among others.

The list of measures, said Mr. Carandang, have been clustered into five areas: human development; infrastructure development; economic development; sovereignty, security and rule of law; and good governance.

“We did not discuss measures to increase taxes but mostly measures that might help revenue collections rather than [a] legislated increase in taxes,” he added.

The controversial reproductive health (RH) bill, however, is one of the 30 identified bills.

The list “will roughly hew to what the President talked about during the State of the Nation address (SONA),” Mr. Carandang said.

Among the measures listed in Mr. Aquino’s SONA last year were the fiscal responsibility, rationalization of fiscal incentives, anti-trust, national land use and whistleblower bills.

Legislators, meanwhile, are preparing their own talking points for the LEDAC meeting, with leaders of both chambers of Congress saying these would be aligned to that of the Aquino administration.

Both Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and House Speaker Feliciano R. Belmonte, Jr. have stated that the proposed antitrust law would be prioritized.

Other than the antitrust law, the Senate priorities are said to include the Electricity Rate Reduction Act, National Telecommunications Commission Reorganization Act, Government Owned and Controlled Corporations Governance Act, the creation of a People’s Survival Fund under the Climate Change Act of 2009, and amendments to the Electric Power Industry Reform Act.

The House priorities, meanwhile, include the Public-Private-Partnership Law as an amendment of the Build-Operate-Transfer Law, Anti-Money Laundering Act; Right to Information Bill and the RH bill. — AMGR

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US Treasury exec makes routine visit

A US TREASURY OFFICIAL visited Manila last week to discuss “investment and growth prospects” with Philippine economic managers and private sector representatives, officials yesterday said.

The US Embassy, in a statement, said “policy measures to bring about higher investment and growth in the Philippines” were tackled in meetings with Robert S. Dohner, the Treasury department’s deputy assistant secretary for Asia.

Briefings with officials of the Finance department, National Economic and Development Authority, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and Asian Development Bank, plus “prominent economists”, were held last Jan. 6-7, the embassy said.

Press Attache Rebecca B. Thompson, in an e-mail, said Mr. Dohner’s Manila trip was one leg of a “routine visit” to Southeast Asia “as part of his responsibility to advise the [US Treasury] Secretary [Timothy Geithner] “.

Finance Undersecretary Gil S. Beltran, in a phone interview, said “tax administration policies and the public-private partnership (PPP) scheme of the government” were among the topics discussed.

“It was normal data/information gathering on the part of the US… [focusing on] the economic status of… allies such as the Philippines,” said Mr. Beltran, who was one of the local officials who met with Mr. Dohner.

He said the US Treasury official had “asked about the intention of the PPP” but did “not provide any recommendations or proposals regarding it.”

The PPP scheme, considered the Aquino administration’s centerpiece economic program, aims to tap private sector funds to address the country’s lack of infrastructure.

Manila, said Mr. Beltran, was also invited to attend a Feb. 22 APEC micro-finance seminar, to be held at the sidelines of the forum’s Finance Deputies’ Meeting, in San Francisco.

BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco, meanwhile, said in a text message that he and Mr. Dohner had “exchanged views” on “global economic and financial developments”.

Ms. Thompson said Mr. Dohner, the highest ranking US Treasury official to visit the country since then-Treasury Undersecretary Timothy D. Adams came in 2006, visited “three other Southeast Asian countries” after the Philippines.

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