House panel oks bill institutionalizing NEDA as independent economic agency

May 28, 2019

The House Committee on Appropriations on Tuesday approved an unnumbered substitute bill, seeking to institutionalize the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) as the independent economic and planning agency of the Philippine government.

The measure, also known as "The National Economic and Development Authority Act of 2018", is principally authored by former President and now House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

It substituted HB 8527 by Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda (2nd District, Albay), HB 8124 by Deputy Speaker Arthur Yap, HB 8189 by Rep. Wes Gatchalian (1st District, Valenzuela City), and HB 8635 by Speaker Arroyo and Reps. Salceda, Yap, and Gatchalian.

The bill seeks to establish the NEDA as an independent economic and planning agency that shall provide impartial, objective, and evidence-based analyses and recommendations for the socio-economic betterment of the nation. The NEDA shall consist of two distinct but functionally related entities: the NEDA Board and the NEDA.

During the meeting presided by Committee Vice Chairperson Rep. Maria Carmen Zamora (1st District, Compostela Valley), Salceda stressed that approval of the measure is long overdue.

"We need a stronger NEDA in order to sustain the reform initiative of the Duterte administration," Salceda said.

Concerns of resource persons from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), Civil Service Commission (CSC) and Department of Finance (DOF) were also settled during the meeting.

Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran supported the spirit of the measure but worried over the effect of institutionalizing the NEDA as an independent body.

"While we believe that the NEDA should be a stronger entity, we believe it should be more interdependent than dependent. Because the moment you call the NEDA independent, it loses its coordinative goal in the committees," Beltran said.

Salceda said the bill qualifies the independence of NEDA in relation to its function of providing recommendations free from influences outside of its own objective and evidence-based analyses.

Salceda added it is the first time all existing, coordinative bodies of NEDA are being recognized and institutionalized through the bill.

"That forces NEDA to be interdependent in order to produce the impartial and objective, evidence-based (recommendations)," Salceda said. DMS