Home Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES / FILE PHOTO
MANILA – Speaker Martin Romualdez on Thursday known as on the bicameral convention committee (bicam) to prioritize Filipinos within the 2025 nationwide finances and produce a spending plan that addresses their day by day wants.
“We’re all right here as a result of we’ve been trusted with a duty. Let’s reside as much as that belief. Let’s have sincere, productive discussions, and let’s discover the widespread floor that places the individuals first,” Romualdez stated on the bicam’s first assembly.
“We owe it to each Filipino who wakes up every single day making an attempt to make ends meet, hoping that their authorities has their again. Let’s give them a finances that claims, ‘Sure, we hear you. Sure, we care. And sure, we’re doing one thing about it,’” he added.
Romualdez stated the bicam mustn’t complicate its finances deliberations to reconcile the variations of the Home of Representatives and the Senate.
“Let’s hold issues sensible and simple. We don’t must overcomplicate this. Let’s give attention to what is going to make the largest distinction for the Filipino individuals. The applications that matter, the providers they depend on, and the investments that may transfer this nation ahead — these must be non-negotiable,” he stated.
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Romualdez reminded the bicam members of the gravity of their job, noting that the finances’s influence “has the facility to both enhance or disrupt the lives of tens of millions of Filipinos.”
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“That is no strange job. We’re not simply crunching numbers; we’re crafting options to actual issues confronted by actual individuals each single day,” he confused.
Romualdez famous that the Home ensured its finances model displays key priorities, together with meals affordability, job creation, accessible healthcare, improved schooling, and catastrophe preparedness.
“We centered on what’s pressing: protecting meals costs down, creating jobs, making healthcare accessible, enhancing schooling, and making certain catastrophe preparedness,” he stated. “I’m assured that our colleagues within the Senate share these objectives.”
Romualdez expressed optimism that the bicam might bridge the hole between legislative chambers and ship options to urgent wants.
“That is the place we show that we’re able to working collectively, not simply as representatives of our respective chambers however as leaders who genuinely care about the way forward for this nation,” he stated.
Whereas the 2 chambers have differing approaches, he highlighted the shared objective of making an inclusive finances.
“The result have to be the identical: a finances that works for everybody — from the farmers in rural provinces to the employees in city facilities, from small enterprise homeowners to younger college students dreaming of a greater life,” he stated.
“I do know we will get this executed, and I do know we will do it proper. So let’s get to work,” Romualdez stated.
Lifeblood
In the meantime, Home Appropriations Committee chairperson Elizaldy Co highlighted the finances’s essential position in sustaining authorities operations and advancing important providers.
“This finances is the lifeblood of our nation. It allows authorities to function successfully and ship important providers to the Filipino individuals,” Co stated.
Co stated the proposed finances additionally ensures persevering with progress underneath the Marcos administration’s eight-point socioeconomic agenda, which goals to decrease the poverty charge to a single digit and elevate the nation’s standing to an upper-middle-income financial system.
“The Official Poverty Statistics for 2023 present a compelling narrative of progress. Poverty incidence has fallen to fifteen.5 %, a big enchancment from 18.1 % in 2021. This implies 2.45 million Filipinos had been lifted out of poverty within the final two years,” Co stated.
Co additional famous that the variety of food-poor people declined from 6.5 million in 2021 to 4.484 million in 2023, reflecting the direct advantages of socioeconomic initiatives supported within the finances.
“These figures converse loudly of the adjustments within the lives of many poor Filipinos. They’re direct beneficiaries of the initiatives and socio-economic applications we supported on this finances. They signify lives modified, households given hope, and communities strengthened,” Co stated.
Co emphasised the finances’s position in addressing inflation, local weather change impacts, and offering hope to weak sectors.
“By persevering with the socio-economic applications and infrastructure investments on this finances, we are going to profoundly influence each Filipino battling inflation and the influence of calamities introduced by local weather change,” he stated. “Extra importantly, this finances will carry hope and optimism to weak sectors that look to us for management and help.”
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Because the bicam deliberations progress, Co urged lawmakers to reconcile their variations and align efforts with the administration’s priorities.
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“Allow us to seize this chance to form the legacy of our collective work—one which displays our shared dedication to construct a stronger, extra equitable, extra resilient Philippines,” Co stated.
