HOUSE Ways and Means Chair Joey Sarte Salceda (Albay, 2nd district) is hoping that President Marcos will adopt a “back-to-basics” approach to his second year in office, ahead of the 2nd State of the Nation Address today. Salceda made the statements in a six-page paper on the solon’s thoughts on the President’s upcoming address.
“PBBM’s historic mandate is a clear demonstration of the nation’s clamor for another nation-building effort – for unity as a governing principle only appeals to people if it is unity of purpose. One does not get 60 percent of the vote only to undertake a presidency of management. That mandate, the largest number of votes any President has received in Philippine history, demands a presidency of ambition. That is what I hope President Marcos will lay out today,” Salceda wrote in circulated remarks.
“Before our more successful neighbors achieved their aspirations of national development, they undertook massive projects that we ourselves have only recently begun to have fiscal space for. As President Marcos has expressed a commitment to double down on the infrastructure push of the past administration, we have the opportunity to revisit several ingredients to national development which we find ourselves currently lacking,” Salceda added.
Salceda cited that the country’s main international gateway, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, has not built a new passenger terminal in 15 years, “while all other countries in the ASEAN-6 have built new airport terminals over the past 10 years.”
“This clearly emphasizes the need for a new international gateway that can service not only passengers, but an export and reexport sector. That is why I maintain that the Bulacan Airport, and a master-planned ecozone around it, is basic to our national ambitions.”
Salceda also emphasized that we have the smallest main port in the region.
“The Port of Manila, including North and South Harbors, and the MICP, has only 34 berths and piers and the smallest land area in the region,” Salceda added.
“The size of our main Port is not the type that can allow us to compete in scalability with other manufacturing centers in the region – or to aspire to be a hub for international trade.”
On rail infrastructure Salceda said that “Our railway system is the shortest of all major ASEAN economies, which reduces our competitiveness in terms of logistics costs, and prevents meaningful interconnectivity among our manufacturing centers and ports of entry and exit.”
On maritime trade, Salceda pointed out that Vietnam has already taken over the country in shipbuilding, an area the Philippines used to dominate in the region.
“The ability to build ships is the strongest indicator of our ability to connect our islands as well as our ability to project economic and trading strength into the global economy. Vietnam has fully overtaken us in shipbuilding tonnage last year, given our own rapid decline in shipbuilding activities since 2019, with the closure of the Hanjin Shipyard.”
Salceda also pointed out that the country has the largest supply deficit of power in the region, driving power costs upward.
“We also have an alarming deficit in power supply, which primarily explains our comparatively expensive power cost. The last time we built a power plant of reliable generating capacity above 1,000 MW was in the year 2000, with Ilijan Power Plant. If Bataan Nuclear Power Plant were made operational, it would have produced some 621 MW of reliable baseload power, which would have made it the 6th largest power plant by generating capacity in the country, behind Sual, Pagbilao-Marubeni, Mariveles, Ilijan, and Santa Rita, and the only plus-500MW plant not powered by fossil fuels.”
