Senado, sinimulan nang busisiin ang panukalang 2025 national budget
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00The Senate has already started the budget hearing for the next year.
00:05The Department of Finance has decided to lower the inflation rate and unemployment rate.
00:10Daniel Malasta has the details.
00:15In the opening speech of Finance Secretary Ralph Recto,
00:18at the beginning of the budget hearing in the Senate,
00:21he gave that many Filipinos last year were affected by poverty.
00:26And last year, we lifted 2.5 million Filipinos out of poverty,
00:33dropping the poverty rate to 15.5%.
00:37If we are able to elevate almost 8 million more Filipinos above the poverty line in the next four years,
00:45we will achieve our goal of reducing the poverty rate to a single digit of 9% by 2028.
00:54Recto also agreed to lower the inflation rate from January to July 2024.
00:59Recto admitted that the country's debt is continuously increasing,
01:03but he said that no one should be held accountable.
01:06It seems that the debt is so big that it can reach trillions of pesos.
01:11But I will repeat, we should not be held accountable for this
01:16because the debt of a country is not measured based on its current size.
01:23And to be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with a country having debts.
01:28As long as the money is used for the right purposes, such as growing the economy,
01:34which in turn creates more jobs, increases income, and provides more revenues for the government.
01:41And that as long as the government has the ability to repay these obligations
01:46without compromising on other essential projects.
01:50Recto told the Senators that they are on the right path and that they are achieving their economic targets.
01:58Despite external headwinds, we have grown at an average of 6.1% since President Marcos Jr. took office.
02:07This is among the fastest in the region.
02:11Even the unemployment rate, which continues to decline, was increased by Calihim.
02:16We have 50.3 million Filipinos employed today.
02:21And 63.8% of them are engaged in formal and stable jobs.
02:28This means that more and more Filipinos are becoming part of our middle class.
02:37But for the Senators, they still need to pursue the issue of infrastructure.
02:42I estimate that in infradevelopment, I think we are 20-30 years behind our ASEAN neighbors.
02:48What's our catch-up plan so that we can catch up?
02:52We continue that with the Build Better More program.
02:55Apart from the national government investments funding our infrastructure projects, we also have PPP.
03:03We are trying to ramp up the implementation of the PPP code, which we believe will be a game-changer moving forward.
03:18One of the things the Senators pointed out is the problem with the right-of-way.
03:22Maybe we should start land-banking.
03:24We know that eventually, we will put a trill there.
03:29We will prioritize the problem with the right-of-way.
03:33It's a government project. You cannot be rejected by any person as long as it's a government project.
03:40That is correct. There is a law on that.
03:42And there are 30,000 projects that are being executed in any given year.
03:49Meanwhile, some economic managers want to review our poverty threshold.
03:54I think it's due for a revisit of our poverty threshold because it's been a while.
04:01It's been more than a decade since it was set.
04:04And I think that the changes in the economy warrant a revisit already of the threshold.
04:12But the reason we are keeping it constant in real terms after adjusting for inflation, Your Honor,
04:19is just to ensure that we are tracking properly.
04:23But Secretary, there are certain things that need to be constant, but there are certain things that have to be adjusted.
04:30Senators are expected to discuss the 2025 budget in the coming days.
04:36Daniel Manalastas for Pambansang TV in Bagong, Philippines.