Senate seeks passage of 3 vital measures
Credit to Author: Bernadette Tamayo| Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2019 16:12:02 +0000
THE Senate is hoping that in January 2020, three important measures that promote security, improve public workers’ welfare and economic development will finally be enacted into laws.
Congress adjourned session on December 18 for a month-long holiday break. The Senate and the House of Representatives will resume session on Jan. 20, 2020.
The Senate had approved on third and final reading the proposed Separate Facility for Heinous Crimes Inmate Act; the Excise Tax on Alcohol Products, and Tobacco and Vapor Act; and the Night Differential Act.
“These measures once signed into law will greatly benefit our workers in the public sector through the grant of night shift differential pay and the additional salary,” Senate President Vicente Sotto 3rd said.
“It will promote healthy living through the excise tax on items considered harmful to our bodies which will eventually give our government revenues that will fund the various programs of this administration,” he said. “It will give the peace and order that we all desire through the creation of more secure penal institutions or facilities for high level inmates and the extension of the validity of firearms and ammunition.”
The Senate on December 16 passed on third and final reading the proposed bill creating three modern maximum penal institutions (MPIs) either in military bases or in isolated islands to house prisoners convicted of heinous crimes.
The Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs, and the Committee on Finance filed on September 17 Senate Bill (SB) 1055 under Committee Report 5 which seeks separate facility in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao for heinous crimes inmates.
Under SB 1055, the MPI should be located “in a secured and isolated place ensuring that there is no unwarranted contact or communication with those outside of the penal institution.”
The MPIs should be built in a suitable location to be determined by the Secretary of Justice, “preferably within a military establishment or in an island separate in the mainland.”
The Senate had also passed on third reading a bill granting night shift differential to government employees whose work requires them to perform their duties “beyond regular working hours.”
The Labor Code of the Philippines defines night shift differential as “not less than 10 percent of his regular wage for each hour of work performed between 10 o’clock in the evening and 6 o’clock in the morning.”
“This wage-related benefit is given to private employees as mandated by the Labor Code,” said Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., chairman of the Senate Committee on Civil Service, Government Reorganization and Professional Regulation.
Under SB 643, government employees, including those in government-owned or controlled corporations, whether they are permanent, contractual, temporary, or casual, should be paid night shift differential at a rate not exceeding 20 percent of the hourly basic rate of the employee for each hour of work performed between 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.