MANDAUE Lone District Rep. Emmarie “Lolypop” Ouano-Dizon will have at least six priority bills during the 19th Congress.
Ouano-Dizon told SunStar Cebu on Monday, July 4, 2022, that these bills will prioritize education, health, solutions to traffic congestion, and disaster preparedness.
The bills comprise new and follow-up bills to those she filed during the 18th Congress.
First on her list is to file a resolution urging the House of Representatives to call for a review and assessment of the K-12 program.
The program was implemented by the Department of Education nearly a decade ago, following the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013.
Ouano-Dizon hopes to re-evaluate the program to see if it has achieved its goal or purpose.
She looks forward to education stakeholders identifying the challenges and gaps of the program since its implementation and deciding on whether to discontinue or modify it.
This, she said, after some sectors reported that it has become financially burdensome to parents.
To prioritize education, Ouano-Dizon will also refile a bill converting the Mandaue City College into a state college that will be called Mandaue State College.
She plans to refile the bill following the successful conversion of Consolacion Community College into one of Cebu Technological University’s satellite campuses.
In the aspect of health, Ouano-Dizon plans to follow up on the bill making renal replacement therapy (RRT) more accessible in national, regional and provincial hospitals that she co-sponsored during the 18th Congress.
The lawmaker cited the rise of kidney diseases, as stated by the Philippine Renal Disease Industry in 2017. She added that a lot of individuals die without experiencing kidney treatments as it is costly in the country.
She said the bill had already passed three readings in the House of Representatives, and this time she hoped it would also pass in the Senate.
To solve traffic congestion in Mandaue City, the congresswoman aims to refile the bill providing a tri-level interchange along M.C. Briones Street corner U.N. Avenue.
The bill passed three Congress readings and was approved by the Senate committee on public works. But it did not pass the second and third readings in the Senate due to lack of time.
Ouano-Dizon also aims to refile the bill she co-sponsored during the 18th Congress that aims to create a Department of Disaster Resilience that will coordinate and integrate the various government disaster and resilience programs.
She will also revisit the bill she co-sponsored proposing to incentivize the services of barangay officials with the inclusion of Government Service Insurance System life insurance, other social security benefits and health protection.