Senator Villanueva’s focus on job-generation and advocacy on workers’ rights
has not kept him from making a critical stance on important national issues.
Following the issuance of the President Rodrigo Duterte’s Executive Order on Freedom of Information (FOI), the senator immediately urged the members of Congress to follow suit. He subsequently filed the FOI Act or An Act Promoting and Enforcing the Right of People to Information (SB 1014), a measure which he has long been pushing for ever since he was a Representative of CIBAC Partylist.
He also participated in a Senate hearing on Emergency Powers in which he urged the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to speed up its crafting of a traffic plan that will be the basis of the Chief Executive once he is given emergency powers to solve the tremendous traffic in Metro Manila. Along with this, he filed the Telecommuting Act (SB 1032) which proposes the possibility of work from home which may not only reduce traffic congestion but also promotes work-life balance and productivity.
Aside from these initiatives, Senator Villanueva has also expressed his support on the government’s war against illegal drugs during his participation in the hearing of Senate Committee on Justice on extrajudicial killings. However, the senator has also emphasized that the government’s intensity on its drug war must be coupled with the same pursuit in probing unjustified killings and to look into more viable solutions to address the drug problem.