FOLLOWING orders from the President, the House of Representatives through the committee on appropriations has conducted an oversight hearing to listen to the government economic managers on how to address inflation and other concerns affecting the lives of the Filipino people.

Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez attended the hearing to personally hear the presentation of the members of the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC).

“We have actually asked the leadership, particularly the appropriations committee to conduct this oversight hearing to hear and to see how Congress and the economic managers can work together, pursuing our President’s whole of government approach to addressing problems of our economy,” Romualdez said in his welcome speech.

The DBCC is composed of the executive’s economic cluster, including the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), Department of Finance (DOF), National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), and their attached agencies.

According to Romualdez, the purpose of the meeting is for the executive and legislative branches to work hand-in-hand in addressing the pressing issues on high inflation rates, employment, poverty and others.

“We are here together to see how we can work hand-in-hand, and we’d like to very much hear from our economic managers how we can engage and make sure that our functions here in the Congress would become more meaningful, more responsive to the needs of the Filipino people,” Romualdez said.

“This is our mission, thus it is the order of our President, Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., to make sure that the lives of Filipino people are much better, that they be more comfortable, safer,” he added.

While the high inflation rate is a global phenomenon, Romualdez underscored the need to look for ways on how to at least lessen the impact to the consumers.

Despite projections of a faster economic acceleration for 2023 — possibly a 6.5 percent gross domestic product growth on a year-on-year basis — the Philippines’ 2023 start was marred by higher inflation rates.

The House leader expressed full commitment to the executive department in prioritizing important and useful measure that could solve the economic challenges.

To date, the Philippine Statistics Authority said that the headline inflation rate for January 2023 was at 8.7 percent — higher than the 8.1 percent recorded in December 2022.

National Statistician Dennis Mapa said the January figure was the fastest since a 9.1 percent headline inflation rate in November 2008, and was almost thrice as fast as the 3 percent recorded in January 2022.

The House leader thanked DBCC members Secretaries Benjamin Diokno of finance and Amenah Pangandaman of budget, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Gov. Felipe Medalla, and National Economic and Development Authority Director General Arsenio Balisacan for briefing House members.

He also thanked appropriations committee chairman Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co and his senior vice chairperson, Marikia Rep. Stella Quimbo, for holding the hearing.

Other House officials, including Majority Leader Mannix Dalipe and Deputy Speaker and Pampanga 3rd District Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales Jr., were in attendance.

“We look forward to more of these meetings and engagements,” the Speaker told his colleagues and the President’s economic managers.