In our country, 2016 ended with Senator Loren Legarda promising to legislate a separate department for culture and the arts. The issue may sound trivial to many, but this writer agrees with the good senadora. We should be serious about our history, culture and the arts, and government should put together the disparate agencies in charge of our cultural heritage under central management. We have the National Museum, the National Library, the National Historical Institute, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, the Cultural Center, several film development agencies, and God knows whatever else.
Senator Loren Legarda today said that the 2017 national budget includes funding, for the first time, for the Centenarian Law and rice allowance for beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).
Funding for the two programs, as well as other programs for indigent Filipinos, especially senior citizens and children, is part of the 2017 budget of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) worth P128 billion.
Senator Loren Legarda today said she looks forward to further deepening the ties between the Philippines and France as the two nations commemorate this year the 70th anniversary of the establishment of Philippines-France diplomatic relations.
Legarda made the statement during the meeting of Philippine Senators with visiting French senators of the France-Southeast Asia Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group.
In observance of Zero Waste Month, Senator Loren Legarda today renewed her call for everyone’s contribution to strictly observe and implement Republic Act 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management (ESWM) Law and aim for a zero waste economy.
Senator Loren Legarda has supported calls to increase the maternity leave of employees in the government and private sector to 100 days as she filed the proposed Expanded Maternity Leave Law (Senate Bill No. 1262).
Legarda said that the current maternity leave of 60 days for normal delivery and 78 days in case of caesarian delivery does not even comply with the international labor standards on maternal protection that recommends a minimum of 14 weeks or 98 days of maternity leave.
