MANILA (UPDATE)— Ahead of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s second State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 24, the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) meeting chaired by the chief executive on Wednesday identified at least 20 bills that should be passed before the end of the year.

Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, who was present in the meeting, told Palace reporters in a phone interview that included in the list are two new measures proposed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

One is the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act or the AFASA bill, which aims to address cybercrimes.

“I think this is for, to deter cybercriminal. Ito po yata kapag may problem on phishing as well as money mules that will be penalized by the law,” Pangandaman said.

She noted that the AFASA bill from the House of Representatives was approved on third reading last May 8, and was transmitted to the Senate a day after. A counterpart bill was filed by Sen. Grace Poe.

Aside from the AFASA bill, also identified as a priority measure is the Bank Deposit Secrecy bill to help address “money laundering cases and problems on terrorism”, among others.

“If there's court cases (that) really need evidence or documents that will show that there are problems or merong talagang issue with regard to money, so the Bangko Sentral can open their accounts. But it is only Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas ha, only exclusive for use of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and maybe shared only with the SEC, PDIC, AMLC, DOJ and other courts,” Pangandaman said.

The budget secretary also listed 18 bills that are still considered priority legislation, all of which had been mentioned by Marcos during his first SONA.

These are the following:

1. Amendments of the BOT Law/PPP bill
2. National Disease Prevention Management Authority
3. Internet Transactions Act/E-Commerce Law
4. Medical Reserve Corps
5. Virology Institute of the Philippines
6. Mandatory ROTC and NSTP
7. Revitalizing the Salt Industry
8. Valuation Reform
9. E-Government/E-Governance Act
10. Ease of Paying Taxes
11. National Government Rightsizing Program
12. Unified System of Separation, Retirement and Pension of MUPS
13. LGU Income Classification
14. Waste-to-Energy bill
15. New Philippine Passport Act
16. Magna Carta of Filipino Seafarers
17. National Employment Action Plan
18. Amendments to the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act

In a statement, Press Secretary Cheloy Garafil said the measures "were approved for legislative approval before the year ends."

Five bills were "in various stages of the legislative process," such as the Budget Modernization Bill, Amendments to the Electric Power Industry Reform Act, Department of Water Resources, National Defense Act, and Amendments to the Universal Healthcare Act.

MAHARLIKA

Marcos is also expected to sign the Maharlika Investment Fund before his upcoming SONA, Pangandaman said.

The Presidential Communications Office (PCO) earlier confirmed that the Palace already received a copy of the enrolled bill on Tuesday.

“The economic team, we were pushing for the signing hopefully before the SONA,” Pangandaman said.

Marcos earlier guaranteed that he would immediately sign the Maharlika bill the moment the legislative measure reaches his office.

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