THE SENATE passed on third and final reading the bill granting Dual Citizenship and the Special Asset Management Companies Act (formerly SPAV).
With only opposition Sen. Rodolfo Biazon abstaining, the Senate approved Senate Bill 2130 that is expected to benefit the more than 1.7 million naturalized Filipinos in the United States alone.
"Once a Pinoy, always a proud Pinoy,'' declared principal author Senate President Franklin Drilon.
Under the new law, Filipinos who have already acquired foreign citizenship need only to present evidence that his or her father or mother is Filipino to be able to acquire dual citizenship.
SB 2130 amended Commonwealth Act No. 63 of 1936 which provided that a pledge of allegiance to another country would mean that a Filipino automatically loses his or her Filipino citizenship.
The new law provides that natural-born Filipinos who have become foreign citizens shall retain their Philippine citizenship unless they freely renounce it under oath.
"We are glad to have fulfilled the aspiration of many of our countrymen who would have wanted to come back to our country and retire here,'' Drilon said.
The new SAMC law would allow more than three billion dollars in foreign investments to pour into the country and inject life to the 600 billion pesos in non-performing assets (NPAs) of the banking industry.
On a vote of 16-2, the Senate approved Senate Bill 2116, formerly known as the Special Purpose Assets Vehicle (SPAV) bill.
In hailing the passage of the first "landmark economic measure'' of the Senate, SB 2116 principal author Sen. Ralph Recto said the SAMC law "will provide equal incentives and equal application of the law to the borrowers, financial institutions (FI) and the SAMCs.''
Recto underscored that with the adoption of the SAMC law, banks would now be able to dispose and even realize some profit from their NPAs which comprise 18 percent of the total assets of the banking industry amounting to 600 billion pesos.
The SAMC law provides incentives in the form of exempting the SAMC, FI and borrower from paying taxes in SAMC transactions including capital gains, value-added and documentary stamp taxes.
The new law also gives a 50 percent discount on the fees and charges on SAMC transactions like those charged by the Land Registration Authority, docket fees and all other registration fees.
The House of Representatives earlier passed on third reading its version of the bill. Senator Aquilino Pimentel and Teresa Aquino-Oreta said they cast a negative vote because only those big businesses with unpaid loans to the government would benefit from the measure.
The bill defines non-performing loans (NPL) as loans and receivables whose principal and/or interest have remained unpaid for at least 180 days and the real and other property owned and acquired assets (ROPOA) as real and other properties owned or acquired by the banks and other financial institutions, in settlement of loans and receivables.
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