House bill proposes ban on ‘cong-tractors’

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February 28, 2026 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — Any congressman engaged in contracting infrastructure projects in any government agency may be barred from holding office, according to a bill of the National Unity Party (NUP) at the House of Representatives.

The NUP is also proposing to the House leadership to include the ban in the current House rules to deter lawmakers from contracting infrastructure projects.

House deputy speaker and Antipolo 1st district Rep. Ronaldo Puno, NUP chairman, said the NUP filed a bill last week seeking to totally ban “cong-tractors” or congressmen who are also contractors in government infrastructure projects.

Under the NUP’s proposed measure, Puno said that if you are a congressman, your family will not be allowed to get a contract for any infrastructure and other construction project in any government agency, including the Department of Public Works and Highways. 

“The ban will cover the 4th degree of consanguinity or affinity. Even your cousins are banned from getting contracts from any government projects. It will not be allowed. Our thesis is that either you are a contractor or you are serving the government. It cannot be both,” Puno said.

“There will be no more divesting, or the shares will be sold. There will be no more like that. It has to be banned or prohibited. Both in the proposed bill that we proposed and at the House rules. While we are waiting for the law, in the House we are doing it as act which can result to expulsion,” Puno said. 

“Meaning to say, if you are in Congress, we have a recommendation to the leadership, to our Speaker and majority leader, to put it in the House rules so that we will no longer wait for the passage of the law to implement it,” he said. 

Puno said that under their proposed bill that they also want to be included in the House rules, once it is proven that a member of the family of a congressman up to the 4th degree of consanguinity or affinity, the congressman will be automatically expelled from the membership of the House of Representatives. 

“We hope that that will become a law. It will pass to the Senate, to the President. But here in the House, once it is accepted by the House and included in the House rules, that will be over. It will be implemented once accepted by the leadership of the House to include it in the House rules,” Puno said. 

He said their proposed rule is now pending before the House committee on rules. He noted that 130 congressmen, including a majority of the 42 members of NUP and members of other political parties such as Lakas, have so far signed their proposed bill.

“It is already in the House committee on rules. Our proposal was already signed by almost all members of the NUP. There are also Lakas members who want to co-sponsor the proposed law; 130 congressmen have already agreed. We just need a little more to make it majority,” Puno said.