THE House of Representatives on Wednesday completed an impressive amount of work in the penultimate session day before the holiday break, measures that will contribute to significant progress for the country once they are implemented.

Foremost among these measures was the near-unanimous approval of the National Water Resources Act (House Bill 9663), a long-delayed bill that will create the Department of Water Resources (DWR). The DWR would serve as the umbrella agency responsible for planning, policy development and management of all water resources, gathering together what are now more than 40 separate offices and agencies into one organization.

The passage is timely in light of the news this week that most of the country is likely to experience serious drought conditions within a couple of months, although it realistically will take longer than that to get the DWR up and running. Nevertheless, the passage of the act is commendable, as it will bring some much-needed order to the current chaotic and inefficient management framework for critical water resources.

Another especially timely measure passed by the House on Wednesday was House Bill (HB) 9034, or the “Philippine Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act.” The act seeks to establish archipelagic sea lanes (ASL) within Philippine waters, in part to prevent arbitrary, undirected passage of foreign vessels within the archipelago’s interior waters and as a means to manage better fisheries, sea routes, and environmental protection areas. To clarify, HB 9034 does not address passage in the West Philippine Sea, but it will help to prevent incidents such as recent collisions between foreign-flagged vessels and Filipino fishing and other craft.

Turning to financial management and oversight matters, the House also approved the proposed New Government Procurement Reform Act (Republic Act 9184), which provides some flexibility and streamlining in government procurement processes. The two key provisions of the act are the reduction of the time needed for procurement activities and cutting the prescribed time from the opening of bids to the award of a contract from 90 days to 60 days. The measure also allows the adjustment of contract prices in the event of unforeseen increases in costs when there is an increase of 10 percent or more in the cost of specific components.

While there has been some criticism of the Procurement Reform Act because of perceptions that it may allow some corruption, the safeguards against this in the older, slower procedures have been retained and strengthened to some degree. The speeding up of government procurement, which will help boost government spending overall, is a clear positive impact; how it is implemented is something that will have to be carefully monitored.

Finally, the House approved the proposed Revised Government Auditing Act (HB 9674), which seeks to update the 45-year-old government accounting standards under Presidential Decree 1445 and reorganize the Commission on Audit (CoA). Under the measure, the CoA will be realigned into 11 specialized offices, dividing up the agency’s substantial volume of annual work according to sector. This will presumably allow the CoA to carry out its audit responsibilities more quickly, something that has been chronically problematic for the country, as many cases when the CoA disallows some expenditures are concluded years after the questionable spending has already taken place. In addition, updating accounting and audit standards to better align with current best practices and international norms helps to improve the credibility, and therefore creditworthiness, of the government and more effectively combat corruption.

While the House of Representatives is often the target of criticism, and deservedly so, for questionable diversions of attention and excessively politicizing issues of little national importance — the recent focus on the legislative franchises of electric distributor Meralco and TV network SMNI might be cited as examples — credit should be given when credit is deserved. The passage of these useful and progressive measures is good work, and we thank the House for accomplishing it. We hope that the Senate has taken note and will act with a similar purpose to complete its half of the work where necessary to deliver these measures to the President’s desk as quickly as possible.