IKOT.PH
With the Senate now conducting hearings on Senate Bill No. 1302, which seeks to extend the legislative franchise of Smart, the wireless subsidiary of PLDT, Inc., Senate President Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III is urging the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to step in and direct the country’s telcos to adopt Mobile Number Portabilty (MNP) to spur […]
Senator JV Ejercito said he will get the commitment of Smart Communications to improve and upgrade its services for the next five to ten years. The senator, as Vice Chairman of the Public Services Committee, said the extension of the telcos giant’s franchise could have been easily renewed for another 25 years had it refined […]
Sen. Cynthia Villar opened an exhibit featuring the seven Philippine sites which are declared Wetlands of International Importance by the Ramsar Convention. Villar said the exhibit, called Wetland Wonders of the Philippines, was mounted at the second floor of the Senate “to highlight the importance of wetlands and why we all advocate for its conservation.” […]
Senator Loren Legarda has filed a measure that would ensure that loans or related funding applications in both public and private lending institutions are in compliance with the country’s environment laws. In filing Senate Bill No. 436, Legarda, Chair of the Senate Committees on Finance and Climate Change, said that she proposes the establishment of […]
Aware of the difficulties senior citizens and persons with disabilities have to face during elections, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez wants to ease their woes by allowing them to vote under the local absentee voting system. Absentee voting is meant to increase participation by citizens who are in situations, which prevent them to vote, like government officials […]
Senator Loren Legarda said that sustainability of the country’s forests is ensuring that both present and future generations would benefit from our natural resources. Legarda, a staunch environmentalist and Chair of the Senate Committee on Climate Change, said that the government should develop and adopt a sustainable forest management strategy based on rational allocation of […]
Senator Sonny Angara has expressed his support for higher pay for employees and officials of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), and has filed a bill exempting the country’s largest tax-collection agency from the coverage of the Salary Standardization Law (SSL). “Better pay would allow the agency to hire the best and reward the honest […]
The House committee on public information, in a move to uphold and strengthen the people’s right to information, unanimously approved this week the much-awaited Freedom of Information (FOI) bill. Rep. Antonio Tinio (Party-list, ACT Teachers), committee chairman, presented to the panel a substitute bill, which is a consolidation of 33 measures on the FOI proposal. […]
Following the passage of estate tax reform in the House of Representatives, the Senate immediately acted on the various proposals that seek to lower, simplify and update estate tax rates to lighten the tax burden of bereaved families. The House of Representatives on Monday approved on third and final reading two bills granting amnesty in […]
The Senate Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development, chaired by Senator Joel Villanueva, tackled on Wednesday a proposed measure providing free access to programs and training of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). Villanueva’s Senate Bill No. 1318 or the “Tulong Trabaho Act of 2017” is said to democratize the access […]