House Speaker Martin Romualdez (left) and President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. (Speaker's office)



"Keep up the good work." Thus, read part of House Speaker Martin Romualdez's message to President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., who will mark his first year anniversary in office on Friday, June 30. “The President did well on year one. Keep up the good work, Mr. President,” Romualdez, arguably Marcos' top ally in the legislature, said on Thursday, June 29. For Romualdez, the most notable accomplishments of the Marcos administration involve helping ordinary Filipinos, sustaining economic growth, promoting the country as an investment destination, and in foreign relations. Marcos did his best in trying to address the Filipinos’ everyday concerns like rising consumer prices and lack of housing, the Speaker said. “He has a genuine concern, compassion and empathy for the poor,” he noted. “Shortly after assuming office, he was confronted with spikes in the price of certain commodities like onions, which were selling for as much as P800 a kilo, and the basic staple rice,” he said. Through a combination of measures, and with the help of Congress, the administration was able to bring down and stabilize the price of onions and rice, Romualdez said. He noted that the House Committee on Agriculture and Food chaired by Quezon 1st district Rep. Mark Enverga had conducted an investigation that exposed price manipulation, hoarding, and cartels behind onion trading. Romualdez, Leyte's 1st district representative, hailed the President for reviving his father’s grassroots Kadiwa stores, which allowed the government to buy farmers’ produce and sell these to the public at low prices. The Speaker pointed out that in the area of housing, the President also had to draw from the experience of his father’s administration by resuscitating housing programs like BLISS (Bagong Lipunan Improvement of Sites and Services), which was a project of his mother, former minister of human settlements and First Lady Imelda Marcos. Romualdez said sustaining the country’s economic growth is another noteworthy achievement of President Marcos. “The economy grew by 7.6 percent and 7.2 percent in the third and fourth quarters of 2022, and 6.4 percent in the first quarter of this year. Those growth periods were the first nine months of the Marcos administration. I sincerely hope we could sustain it,” he said. He said the impressive growth during the President’s first six months in office was the result of the Chief Executive’s decision to reopen the economy despite the lingering threat of the Covid-19 pandemic. He added that multilateral financial institutions took note of the country’s economic expansion, which prompted the World Bank (WB) to upgrade its 2023 forecast from 5.4-5.6 percent to six percent. The House leader also said that President Marcos actively promoted the country as an investment destination in his several trips abroad. Also during these trips, the President forged closer diplomatic, economic, and cultural relations with the countries he visited, including the United States (US) and China. “He has cultivated our ties with our old, reliable ally and partner, the US, and renewed bilateral discussions with China to uphold our interests in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) and our exclusive economic zone,” Romualdez said.

Still immensely popular

Because of these remarkable accomplishments and his genuine concern for the poor and national interest, Romualdez said President Marcos remains immensely popular. He noted that in the March survey of Pulse Asia, 78 percent of respondents approved of the President’s performance, with 80 percent saying they trusted Marcos. Publicus Asia’s second-quarter survey showed that the President’s approval rating rose to 62 percent from 60 percent in the first quarter. Some 68 percent of respondents in the same survey said the country was on the right track. In another poll taken by OCTA Research Group in the first quarter, 54 percent of respondents said they expected their quality of life to improve, up from 51 percent from the previous survey. Meanwhile, 50 percent believed that the economy would get better, up from the previous 46 percent.