Romualdez credits colleagues’ ‘teamwork, cooperation’ passage of 2022 budget
HOUSE Majority Leader and Leyte Representative Martin Romualdez credited the spirit of teamwork and cooperation of his colleagues in finishing the amendments of the proposed 2022 P5.024 trillion General Appropriations Bill (GAB) for 2022 designed to rebuild the economy and decisively defeat the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic.
“Thank you to the leaders and members of the House of Representatives led by Speaker Lord Allan Velasco for working very hard in crafting a responsive and relevant national budget, which would address the needs of the country in recovering from the effects of the pandemic,” said Romualdez, chairman of the House Committee on Rules, after House Committee on Appropriations chairman and ACT-CIS Party-list Representative Eric Yap announced the P65.5-billion worth of realignments in the national budget, including the P20 billion for the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines and booster shots and P4.5 billion for healthcare workers’ special risk allowance (SRA).
Romualdez, president of the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (CMD), said the House of Representatives pushed for amendments that will address the country’s need for vaccines and booster shots, health concerns to improve the capacity to respond to pandemic and other diseases, and other items such as financial assistance to ensure that the poor and most vulnerable sectors will have access to government resources.
“The small committee did a painstaking work to ensure that the national budget that we are about to transmit to the Senate will pass on legal and constitutional tests,” added Romualdez, a lawyer from the University of the Philippines (UP) and president of the Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa).
Romualdez lauded the Duterte administration to anchor the economic recovery on a massive COVID-19 vaccination campaign, which is now picking up steam.
“We are on the right track in recognizing mass vaccination as the key to economic rebound. Despite limited global supply, our vaccination is picking up steam and is getting the results that we wanted for our economy,” he added.
