As the Christmas season approaches, Filipinos begin to think of angels who were most visible during the birth and resurrection of Christ.

But I am thinking of angels of another kind: The "angels" in the current 14th Congress who promised to pass bills that will deliver us from the devils of ignorance, hunger and disease.

In fact, Senate President Manuel Villar has vowed the Senate would be the best performing government institution this year. His bullishness is based on the passage in the Upper Chamber of 14 priority bills before the start of the Christmas break.

In the first place, there is the passage of the R1.3 trillion national budget in record time by the House of Representatives and sent to the Senate for its concurrence. Credit for the passage of the House version of the national budget goes to the House appropriation committee, surely a group of "hardworking angels," led by Albay’s veteran Congressman Edcel Lagman.

It is now up to the Senate to act on a budget that has major funds for education, agriculture, public works, and health where family planning practices are given much greater financing than in previous allocations.

There are, however, those in the business sector who fear that they may not get what they need from Congress this year.

They include the Makati Business Club and two international business groups: The American Chamber of Commerce and the European Union Chamber of Commerce. They feel the current Congress may not be able to pass the bills that will enhance the country’s global competitiveness.

Of course, Senate Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan has attempted to minimize the business groups’ fear, saying that at least the Credit Information System Act may be passed by the Upper Chamber this year.

The Act, which creates a Credit Information Agency to be supervised by the Monetary Board of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, will be the first institution to bring down the cost of borrowing in the country.

Pushing the bill is the Senate committee on banks under the chairmanship of Senator Edgardo J. Angara.

Demonstrably, an agency under the supervision of the Bangko Sentral has a lot more credibility being independent of Malacañang.

The credit information system will create quality information available to investors, enhance private sector access to credit, and will certainly minimize exposure to risks of financial intermediaries, according to Angara.

The senator explained that the agency will provide basic credit information and private sector rating agencies will provide the analysis.

Big, medium and smallscale business borrowers will be able to borrow money for their enterprises which include micro-finance activities, by the way, a near-exclusive domain of women entrepreneurs.

So far, the work of the Angara committee is well advance, the reason Senator Pangilinan is optimistic of its forthcoming passage.

Now the House counterpart committee should do its best to pass its own version of the bill in time for the bicameral conference committee to readily untangle and smooth out any differences they have for its final textual rendition of the Act.

There are certainly angels in both Houses of Congress working overtime to meet the needs of the people and income-plus-job-generating institutions.

Let there be no "fallen angels" before our lawmakers go on leave for their Christmas holiday.