TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE OF SEN. FRANKLIN DRILON
After public hearing on SB 2566 or the proposed GOCC Governance Act of 2010

DRILON: This afternoon's hearing on SB 2566 or the GOCC Governance Act, Sec. Purisima, Sec. Abad, Chairman Duque of the Civil Service Commission and Asst. Government Corp. Counsel (Elpidio Vega) have all favorably endorsed the enactment of the GOCC Governance Act. SB 2566 is the result of the hearings that we conducted on the GOCCs. This is the GOCC reform act which we hope will rationalize the structure, existence and operations of the GOCCs. The principal features of the bill is that we will come up with a Governing Council for GOCCs which will have delegated powers to reorganize the various boards, to set compensation for the board of directors, they will be acting by virtue of the delegated powers of Congress. The days when the 157 boards can act independently of the national government is over, once we have this bill passed into law. We are confident that we would be able to have this measure passed in the Senate, and we will work on its passage in the House of Representatives.

We are confident that with the bill, once it becomes a law, the abuses that we saw on the part of the GOCCs will no longer be possible.

Q: What are the amendments proposed by the agencies?

DRILON: There are a number of amendments submitted and the committee will now go through it and the committee is inclined to accept. We will include some of these amendments in the committee report.

Q: Walang major opposition in the original bill?

DRILON: There is no opposition. There are proposed amendments as for example the structure of the GOCC Governance Council, which we proposed to create in the bill, there are proposed amendments that it should be under the DoF, rather than under the OP. There are proposed amendments to the structure of the council which we will adopt.

Q: Ano ang next step sir?

DRILON: We will now submit a committee report and we will incorporate the amendments suggested by the different resource persons. The next step is that we will be ready to sponsor it on the floor.

Q: Sino ang counterpart nito sa House?

DRILON: Wala pa. Once we have the final version, we will sit down with the Speaker and ask them to take a look at this for possible filing in the House.

Q: Matutulog lang yan nang matagal kung ma-approve man dito sa Senado?

DRILON: I think they will see the merit of having this bill passed. Once we have finalized the committee report and once we have submitted it for debates to the Senate and after the amendments on the floor, we intend to request the President to certify this as an urgent administration measure in order that its passage can be assured.

Q: About SP Enrile's proposal on uniform standard compensation.

DRILON: That is possible. We'll leave that to the governing council to work on because it's difficult to set it in the law because the salary must be dynamic, meaning you must be able to adopt it to the environment that you operate in. So we will leave that to the council to handle.

Q: On 2011 budget.

DRILON: We target mid-December for the approval of the bicameral conference committee report and submit it to the President afterwards.

Q: Ang target nyo ma approve dito sa Senate by 1st week of December?

DRILON: Under our calendar, we proposed to have it approved on 3rd reading by December 1.

Q: Kakayanin?

DRILON: That is the timetable that we have. We will exert every effort to follow this timetable.

Q: Magkakaroon ng morning and afternoon session?

DRILON: Yes we will go on a morning and afternoon session starting November 24, 25, 26, 30 and December 1. Morning, afternoon, evening and morning. Evening and morning of the following day. (November 29 is a holiday)