Two bills President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. listed in his wish list in Congress have been lobbied in the House of Representatives a day after the Chief Executive named it in his second State of the Nation Address.
The proposed Tatak-Pinoy (Proudly Filipino) law and the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act, among Mr. Marcos’ 17 priority legislation that he asked Congress to enact, were embodied in House Bills 8601 and 8600, respectively, filed on 25 July by Quezon Rep. Keith Micah Tan.
Marcos, during his second SoNA on Monday, bared before Congress his 17 priority bills in his second year in office, seeking its legislative power for its enactment.
Seven of the total measures have already hurdled the lower chamber, with the remaining ten expected to be passed in October and December, confirmed by Speaker Martin Romualdez.
Tan’s HB 8601 calls for the creation, funding, and implementation of the Tatak Pinoy Strategy by the Tatak Pinoy Council composed of the National Economic and Development Authority’s director general and Departments of Trade and Industry and Finance’s secretary.
“The goal is to make the country competent in producing and offering complex or sophisticated products and services in order to empower the economic sector to branch out into other forms of complex production and economic activity towards jumpstarting national development that is anchored in the ingenuity of the Filipinos,” the lawmaker said in filing the bill.
The proposal aims to make Filipino-made products, goods, and services competitive in the global market.
Meanwhile, HB 8600, among other similar bills filed in the House, intends to amend Republic Act 10845, or the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act of 2016.
Among the provisions is the imposition of harsher penalties s on anyone found to have smuggled agricultural goods into the country, considering that no one has been prosecuted under existing laws despite the widespread smuggling of rice, sugar, onions, carrots, garlic, fish, and pork, Tan said.
Last year, the government seized P1.2-billion of smuggled agricultural products.
Also last year, the country experienced an agricultural shortage, primarily in onions, which soared as high as P500 to P700 per kilo during the last quarter of 2022.
Earlier this week, Speaker Martin Romualdez has vowed that the House will approve four bills, including the Tatak Pinoy and Anti-Agricultural Smuggling before Congress goes into its first recess in October in the 10 priority measures that the chamber has yet to pass.