Legislation

Senator Risa Hontiveros currently serves in the 18th Congress as the Chairperson of the Committee on Women, Children, and Family Relations, which was also the committee she headed in the 17th Congress. She is a health and women’s rights advocate, a proud activist, and a champion of the basic sectors.

Republic Act 9502 – Cheaper and Quality Medicines Law

Main author. “It is intended to achieve universally accessible and cheaper and quality medicines by pursuing an effective competition policy in the pharmaceutical sector. It shall adopt appropriate measures to promote and ensure access to affordable quality drugs and medicines for all”

Republic Act 10932 – Act Strengthening the Anti-Hospital Deposit Law

Main author. “It prohibits the demand or acceptance of deposits or advance payments as prerequisite for administering basic emergency patient care and medical treatment, including confinement; and the refusal to administer emergency medical treatment or support to a patient in a hospital or medical clinic.”

Republic Act 11036 – Philippine Mental Health Law

Main author. “The law would secure the rights and welfare of persons with mental health needs and mental health professionals; provide mental health services down to the barangays; integrate psychiatric, psychosocial, and neurologic services in regional, provincial, and tertiary hospitals; improve mental healthcare facilities; and promote mental health education in schools and workplaces.”

Republic Act 11166 – HIV and AIDS Policy Act of 2018

Main author, “It repeals RA No. 8504 or the Philippine AIDS Prevention and Control Act of 1998, to take into consideration more current knowledge on dealing with HIV/AIDS. Under RA No. 11166, the Philippine National AIDS Council (PNAC) is reconstituted. It is also tasked to strengthen HIV/AIDS education, mandating schools to focus not just on the right to information but also on ways to reduce stigma and discrimination. Minors from 15 to 17 years old may now undergo HIV even without parental consent.

Universal Healthcare Law

Co-author. “It expands access to health services by automatically enrolling all Filipinos in PhilHealth’s National Health Insurance Program (NHIP). It seeks to ensure that all Filipino citizens have access to a comprehensive set of health services without financial hardship.

Republic Act 11249 - Speech Pathology Law

Main author. “With this, the government is tasked to provide regulatory measures, programs, and activities that will equip speech language pathologists with “standards of professional practices and services [that is] world-class, internationally recognized, and globally competitive.”

Republic Act 11222 - Simulated Birth

Co-auhtor. “It grants amnesty to individuals who falsified civil registry records to make it appear in a child’s birth record that the child was born to a woman who is not the biological mother, thereby causing the loss of the child’s true identity and status. also provides for a streamlined adoption procedure to rectify the status and filiation of a child whose birth was simulated, provided that applicable requirements are met.

Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program Law

Co-auhtor. is a national poverty reduction program that provides conditional cash transfer to poor households for a maximum of 7 years "to improve the health, nutrition, and education aspect of their lives."

Republic Act 9700 – Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension With Reforms (CARPER) Law

Main author. A policy that promotes the rights and welfare of landless Filipino farmers and farm workers by helping then own to directly or collectively own the lands they till or to have a share of the produced.”

Republic Act 11037 – Masustansyang Pagkain para sa Batang Pilipino Act

Main author. “It aims to combat hunger and undernutrition among Filipino children through a national feeding program.”

Republic Act 11210 – Expanded Maternity Leave Law

Main author. “All working mothers in the government and private sector are guaranteed with 105 days of paid maternity leave credits, with 7 days transferable to fathers. An additional 15 days of paid leave will be granted to single mothers. Under the previous law, employed women are entitled to 60 days of paid leave for normal delivery and 78 days for caesarean delivery.”

Republic Act 11313 – Safe Streets and Public Spaces Act

Main author. “It protects everyone from sexual harassment both in physical and online spaces, and not just by persons in authority. penalizes catcalling, wolf-whistling, misogynistic and homophobic slurs, unwanted sexual advances, and other forms of sexual harassment in public places, workplaces, schools, as well as in online spaces.”

Republic Act 11188- Special Protection of Children in Situations of Armed Conflict Law

Main author. The law requires the state to “provide special protection to children in situations of armed conflict from all forms of abuse, violence, neglect, cruelty, discrimination and other conditions prejudicial to their development, taking into consideration their gender, cultural, ethnic and religious background.”

Senate Bill No. 1373 or the proposed Girls not Brides Act

Main author. “It aims to protect children by prohibiting and penalizing child marriages. The bill states that facilitation, solemnization or participation in child marriages is a public crime, and will be considered a violation of Section 10 of the Republic Act No. 7610, or the Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act, with the penalty of prision mayor in its maximum period and fees up to 50,000 pesos.”

SOGIE Equality Bill

Main author. Not yet a law. “An Act Prohibiting Discrimination on the Basis of Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity or Expression (Sogie) and Providing Penalties Therefor” is the first of its kind in the country. Other anti-discrimination bills have been filed in the past, but these were never SOGIE-specific, lumping the lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, and queer sector (LGBTQ++ sector) with others such as the differently abled or the indigenous groups.

Republic Act 11054 - Bangsamoro Organic Law

Main author. “It aims to establish a political entity, provide for its basic structure of government in recognition of the justness and legitimacy of the cause of the Bangsamoro people and the aspirations of Muslim Filipinos and all indigenous cultural communities in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.”

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