SPEAKER Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez, as the leader of the bigger House of Representatives, will follow the lead of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Romualdez Marcos Jr.’s administration when it pursues its previous State of the Nation Address (SONA) goals of bringing down the inflation and unemployment rate as well as reducing the cost of rice to P20 per kilo.
Speaker Romualdez said that while the Marcos administration is “not there yet” in achieving some of the objectives it set during the first SONA, it has made great strides in bringing down inflation,
unemployment and the prices of rice in the country.
“As we’ve already seen, the inflation rate is going down so tama ‘yung direksyon pero hindi pa talaga tayo nakaabot sa punto na mababa na talaga ang presyo ng mga bilihin. We want to get there, that’s the
direction,” Romualdez, the leader of the 312-member House of Representatives, told reporters in an interview late Saturday afternoon.
“Dito rin sa trabaho, or ‘yung jobs, ‘yung unemployment. The unemployment rate is going down pero marami pa rin ang walang trabaho. So while we are not yet there, ‘yung direksyon po ay tama,” Speaker
Romualdez, the administration stalwart and President of the dominant Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (CMD), said.
In fact, Speaker Romualdez said, inflation continued to slow down up until last month, when it settled at 5.4% in June from a high of 8.7% at the start of the year in January.
The headline inflation of 5.4% in June is the lowest in a span of 13 months, coming from 8.6% in February, 7.6% in March, 6.6% in April and 6.1% in May.
Citing latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on the unemployment rate, the highest ranking House leader from Leyte said it continued to decline in April when it dropped to 4.5 percent
in April 2023 from 5.7 percent in the same month last year, and 4.7 percent in the previous month.
“We have had surveys and focus groups on the developments in the administration’s satisfaction (ratings) … in terms of the people who are in favor of the administration’s general direction. We are moving in the right (direction) and they (the people) are better off now than they were in the previous years,” Speaker Romualdez said.
“One of our pollsters here said it’s actually good news. But obviously, we join the President’s fervor and dedication and his sense of urgency that, maski na maganda ang direksyon po ng progreso ng
administrasyon, we still have a lot of work to do. Marami pa po,” he said.
As for achieving the P20 per kilo of rice objective, a Marcos administration legacy promise, Romualdez said the President is still keen on fulfilling its vow.
“We are not yet there but we will soon approach that. We will make sure that in the House, we will take initiatives as we had done in the previous regular session that we will focus on the availability of
affordable rice and we will try to target that 20 pesos per kilo,” Romualdez said.
