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Aside from the RH bill, Enrile said they will tackle Senate Bill 3009, which seeks to amend the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) and Senate Bill 3098 or the proposed Competition Act.
The Senate is also expected to deliberate on the proposed Terrorist Financing Suppression Act before the adjournment of its second regular session on June 8.
In a letter addressed to Enrile last March, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa said the Philippines has been downgraded from the grey list to the dark grey list for its failure to enact into law the AMLA amendments and the Terrorist Financing Suppression bill last year.
The Philippines, Ochoa warned, would be blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) unless it meets its May 2012 deadline.
If blacklisted by the FATF, Philippine-based transactions would face increased scrutiny by financial institutions that could result in delayed remittances of Filipinos working abroad and higher transaction charges and costs.
Remittances from over eight million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) comprise a tenth of the Philippines’ $200-billion economy.
The AMLA bill seeks to further strengthen the country's legal framework to curb money laundering activities and make it fully compliant with international standards.
Statistics from the Legislative Bills and Index Service showed that the Senate has approved 34 bills and has acted upon 283 other measures filed since July 2010.
Sixteen have been enacted into law such as Republic Act 10150 (Extending the Lifeline Rate to Marginalized End-Users of Power), Republic Act 10157 (Kindergarten Education), and Republic Act 10153 (Synchronization of the Armm Elections with the National and Local Elections), whose constitutionality was upheld by the Supreme Court.
Four other measures await the approval of the President, these are: the Foster Care Act, the Geology Profession Act, Cabuyao City Charter and the Mabalacat City Charter.
Two other bills are pending in the conference committee, Department of Information and Communications Technology and Ethnic Discrimination.
Nine bills, on the other hand, were submitted to the House of Representatives for concurrence like Senate Bill 2796 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2011, Senate Bill 2811 or the People's Survival Fund (Climate Change), Senate Bill 2817 or the Involuntary Disappearance Act, and Senate Bill 2875 or the Security of Tenure of Casual/Contractual Employees of the Government. (Virgil Lopez/Sunnex)
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