Senate starts debates on emergency powers Tuesday

“We would start the plenary debates for the emergency powers so that we will finish and approve the bill at the soonest,” Sen. Grace Poe, chair of the Senate Committee on Public Services, said Monday. (Photo: Grace Poe/ Facebook)

MANILA –The Senate will open the period of interpellations for the proposed emergency powers on Tuesday.

“We would start the plenary debates for the emergency powers so that we will finish and approve the bill at the soonest,” Sen. Grace Poe, chair of the Senate Committee on Public Services, said Monday.

Poe expressed hope that emergency powers would be “part of the solution” to country’s the traffic woes and other transport problems.

Under Committee Report No. 24 or “An Act Compelling the Government to Address the Transportation and Congestion Crisis Through the Grant of Emergency Powers to the President,” Poe noted that alternative methods could be used to speed up implementation of key transportation projects.

However, Poe said that if emergency powers will be approved, it will be valid and effective until the next adjournment of Congress –or in June 2019 –unless sooner withdrawn.

The senator meanwhile assured that the Senate would work double time to ensure that the emergency powers will significantly ease commuters’ burdens.

She also reminded the Department of Transportation (DOTr) that “emergency powers is not a gift to the administration but a challenge that compels the Executive to move.”