Press Release
March 18, 2019

VETOING OF OSG BILL, A WASTE OF TAXPAYERS' MONEY - GORDON

Senator Richard J. Gordon has decried the vetoing of the proposed bill strengthening the Office of the Solicitor General as a waste of taxpayers' money.

"It was a waste of time, a waste of taxpayer's money. We worked so hard for this bill. It was an administration bill. I had no plans of filing such bill but they lobbied for it. They vetoed themselves," he said.

President Rodrigo R. Duterte vetoed last week enrolled bill Senate Bill No. 1823 /House Bill No. 7376 because of apprehension that the provisions of the proposed measure granting benefits beyond the current compensation framework for other government offices may prove to be too onerous to the government because it will create too much disparity and inequality among the public servants in the Executive Branch, among others.

"They asked for their salaries be the same as others. We complied and we even debated it for them," the chairman of the Committee on Justice and Human Rights said.

Gordon, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said the bill would ensure that the benefits received by the solicitor general and the OSG lawyers would be at par with their counterparts in the judiciary, the Department of Justice and the Office of the Ombudsman.

During the deliberations of the bill, he underscored the need to strengthen the OSG by adjusting the salaries and providing more benefits in order to attract and hire more lawyers.

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