SPONSORSHIP SPEECH
Senator Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada
Bicameral Conference Committee Report on the disagreeing provisions of Senate Bill No. 1480 and House Bill No. 7939
Rationalizing the Disability Pension of Veterans
Mr. President, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, as your Chairperson of the Senate Committee on National Defense and Security, Peace, Unification and Reconciliation, I have the honor to present the Bicameral Conference Committee Report on the disagreeing provisions of Senate Bill No. 1480 and House Bill No. 7939. This is the bill rationalizing the disability pension of our veterans, further amending for the purpose Republic Act No. 6948, An Act Standardizing and Upgrading the Benefits for Military Veterans and Other Dependents.
I would like to thank our fellow conferees from the House of Representatives, led by Hon. Jorge “Patrol” Bustos, Chairperson of House Committee on Veterans Affairs and Welfare, for agreeing to use the Senate version as the working draft. The two short bills, may I emphasize, have very minor differences and actually propose similar rates of increase for the monthly disability pension for our veterans.
Section 1 of the Senate version was adopted which simplified and clarified the provision on who will be entitled to the Total Administrative Disability pension of P1,700.
Sections 2, 3 and 4 of the Senate version on “Appropriations,” “Separability Clause,” and “Repealing Clause” were also adopted.
Section 5 of the Senate version was amended to commence the effectivity of the measure after its complete publication in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation.
Finally, the panels adopted the title of the House version to reflect the accurate title of the original law which is RA 6948.
Mr. President, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to our esteemed colleagues, Sen. Grace Poe and our Minority Floor Leader Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III for their invaluable support to this long overdue measure, and the members of the House panel, Cong. Bustos, Committee Vice Chairpersons Cong. Marlyn Primicias-Agabas and Cong. Milagros Aquino-Magsaysay, as well as Cong. Geraldine Roman and Cong. Sergio Dagooc, who are all authors of the bill.
Mr. President, I respectfully move that we adopt and ratify the bicameral conference committee report on the disagreeing provisions of Senate Bill 1480 and House Bill 7939.
Thank you, Mr. President.