Villafuerte: Marcos has done well
With focus on FDI, infra spending, pandemic recovery
FOR Camarines Sur Representative LRay Villafuerte, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has “done well” in his first 100 days in office, “hitting his stride already” at the onset of his presidency on the strength of initiatives on investment generation, job creation and infrastructure buildup that will let him deliver on his campaign pledge to uplift the lives of all Filipinos.
Villafuerte said that “Given the government’s limited fiscal space resulting from the required huge healthcare and economic stimulus spending during the over two-year pandemic, the President was correct in anchoring our country’s rebound from coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) on generating more capital from both foreign and local investors and sustaining the massive infrastructure program of the past Administration to stimulate high growth and create jobs at the start of his presidency.”
On the economic diplomacy front alone, the President’s official trips to Indonesia, Singapore, and the United States (US) have yielded almost P20 billion worth of foreign direct investment (FDI) pledges combined that are projected to create a total of 134,000 jobs for Filipinos, according to Villafuerte, who is now president of the National Unity Party (NUP), which is the second biggest power bloc in the House of Representatives.
“President Marcos has done well in his first 100 days in office, hitting his stride already at the onset of his six-year term with major initiatives and feats meant to set in motion the Philippines’ economic and political resurgence and communicating adeptly how he intends to achieve that vision, in keeping with his ‘Bangon bayan muli’ campaign pledge for all Filipinos,” he said.
“Even before the President assumed office last June 30, Mr. Marcos had sprung a surprise on even his critics with his excellent choices for his then would-be Cabinet, ranging from the highly respected technocrats for his economic team to outgoing or former local executives to head major departments,” Villafuerte, a former CamSur governor, added.
The NUP president noted that the President has managed to communicate effectively to the international community in his overseas journeys and to the Filipino public during his speaking engagements and out-of-town trips his vision for an upper middle-income Philippines at peace with its neighbors and where—in the Chief Executive’s words—there will be “not one more hungry Filipino.”
“What the President has adeptly managed to convey over the past 100 days with his slew of initial actions, projects and speeches is this: he has a clear grasp of what and where the Philippines should be in the near future—and how he intends to take us there on his watch.”
Villafuerte said the President’s decision to name himself as Department of Agriculture (DA) secretary, which underscored his administration’s paramount concern for farm modernization and food security, was just one among his excellent appointments topped by his selection of highly respected technocrats such as Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Gov. Benjamin Diokno, Monetary Board (MB) member Felipe Medalla, Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) chairman Arsenio Balisacan and development banker and former University of the Philippines (UP) president Alfredo Pascual as his economic managers.
Diokno and Pascual are now the finance and trade secretaries, Balisacan is the director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), and Medalla is the governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
“These excellent appointments have assured the international business community that President Marcos has assembled an economic team that is more than capable of steering the pandemic-battered domestic economy towards a quick and strong recovery on the back of the country’s strong macroeconomic fundamentals, made even stronger by the game-changing reforms initiated by the past Administration,” he said.
