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LET US EMULATE SPEAKER — SOLON

June 12, 2023 Jester P. Manalastas 202 views

A stalwart of Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) urged his colleagues to emulate the example of Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez and focus on their mandate of passing legislation that will benefit the Filipino people.

In a statement, Quezon Rep. Mark Enverga, NPC spokesperson, said the good camaraderie between Romualdez and the administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Romualdez Marcos Jr. is the key to the chamber’s record number of bills and resolutions passed during the First Regular Session of the 19th Congress.

“Speaker Romualdez is taking the high road. He is even urging us to be more productive as the 2nd Regular Session of Congress draws near. And I fully agree: we have to focus our eyes on the prize, which is working for the welfare of our constituents, the Filipino people,” Enverga, chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture and Food, said.

“And the House, under the guidance of Speaker Romualdez, has a strong synergy with President Marcos and his administration. I hope we could maintain that and continue to be effective in our objectives, such as passing priority legislation of the President,” Enverga added.

Romualdez and Enverga warned that apart from the cartel and their cohorts, all other profiteers—including local traders and other players in the onion industry—who will continue to take advantage of the consumers will face certain prosecution.

It was Romualdez who called for a congressional probe in December last year when prices of onion surged to over P700 a kilo to address the issue and protect the consumers.

The House of Representatives has processed a total of 9,600 measures broken down into 8,490 bills, 1,109 resolutions and one petition, or an average of 30 measures for each session day of the entire 10 months of the First Regular Session.

It was able to approve on third and final reading 33 out of 42 bills listed as priority measures of President Marcos and the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC), which forms part of the total 577 bills passed on final reading.

Enverga said this outstanding performance by the larger chamber has been recognized by the Filipino people when the House or Speaker Romualdez scored very high trust, performance or satisfaction ratings in the surveys of large polling firms like Social Weather Stations (SWS), Pulse Asia and Octa Research.

“The House of Representatives and Speaker Romualdez have been getting high marks from surveys conducted recently. We don’t want any diversions to adversely affect the good performance of lawmakers. We need to look after the welfare of the people,” Enverga said.

In the Octa Research survey conducted from March 24 to 28, Speaker Romualdez recorded a 59 percent satisfaction rating, 15 percent higher than the 44 percent he obtained in the October 2022 survey.

He also recorded a 55 percent trust rating, which means the majority of Filipinos trust him. This is higher by 17 percent compared to the survey done in the last quarter of 2022.

The same goes for the recent surveys of SWS and Pulse Asia, in which the larger chamber and Romualdez obtained 56 percent and 51 percent satisfaction and performance ratings, respectively.