Former Senator Cynthia Villar on Saturday pushed back against claims that the long pending National Land Use Act (NLUA) had been “stuck” during her time as chairperson of the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, saying the characterization ignored how legislation actually moves through Congress.

The NLUA, which seeks to establish a comprehensive framework for classifying and managing the country’s land resources, has remained pending in Congress for more than two decades across multiple administrations.

In a statement, Villar said no committee chairperson could singlehandedly pass a bill into law, noting that measures must first go through public consultations, technical working groups, committee deliberations, and coordination with government agencies and stakeholders before reaching the plenary.

She said it is ultimately the full Senate — not the panel chair — that decides whether a bill advances.

“The claim that the bill was simply ‘stuck under the Villars’ disregards how the legislative process works,” she said.

Villar cited her committee’s record during her tenure, saying it passed the Expanded National Integrated Protected Areas System Act which added 94 protected areas to the 13 originally covered under the National Integrated Protected Areas System law.

She said the committee passed a total of 121 legislated protected areas by the end of her chairmanship, covering more than five million hectares of forests, mountains, watersheds, wetlands and coastal and marine ecosystems.

Anti-plastic waste law

She also pointed to the passage during her watch of the Extended Producer Responsibility Act which requires large companies to recover and manage their plastic packaging waste.