Senator Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito on Monday clarified that the Senate is not planning to reduce the number of holidays in the country but is instead considering limiting the approval of additional ones.

This comes following the recent statement of Senate President Francis Escudero that holidays should be lessened.

The lawmaker said that Escudero’s statements -- which was heavily criticized by the public, particularly the labor sector -- was “misunderstood.”

“Recently, the Senate President expressed concerns about the seemingly high number of holidays in our country and in fact, it seems that our Senate President was misunderstood. He didn’t really want to reduce the holidays but just to rationalize them,” said Ejercito.

“We are not reducing them; we are just trying to rationalize. Perhaps the discussion has become a bit heated,” he added.

Ejercito made this clarification during the joint hearing of the Senate Committee on Local Government with the Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms and People’s Participation, which he presided over.

Last week, Escudero said that members of the Senate had agreed to limit the approval of bills on local holidays to make the country “more competitive” and stressed that due to the high number of existing non-working holidays, which now totals almost a month, the Philippines might be facing challenges in competitiveness.