Villafuerte hails Marcos' SONA build-up of Build, Better, More
Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte (left), President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. (Facebook, MANILA BULLETIN)
Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte has hailed President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.' for his commitment on infrastructure development under the national government's “Build Better More” (BBM) program. Marcos highlighted his stance toward infrastructure spending during his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday afternoon, July 24. Villafuerte was in attendance at the event along with over 300 other lawmakers at the plenary hall of the House of Representatives. "Infra investments have the highest multiplier effects on the economy that would lead, among others, to more jobs in the long haul—in keeping with Mr. Marcos’ Bayan Bangon Muli (the country will rise again) campaign pledge in the 2022 elections," said Villafuerte, majority leader of the powerful Commission on Appointments. In his SONA, Marcos bared that the government currently has 194 major infrastructure projects. These include the the Bataan-Cavite Interlink bridge, the Panay-Guimaras Negros Island bridges, 1,200-kilometer (km) Luzon Spine Expressway network, the Megabridges program, and the North-South Commuter Railway (NSCR) project. The P8.3-trillion BBM program is the Marcos administration’s follow-up to the previous Duterte government's Build, Build, Build (BBB) program. The President said that on top of sustaining the infrastructure modernization program of the previous administration, he is in fact expanding this initiative with bigger investments in projects on physical connectivity like roads and bridges, water management, agriculture, education, energy and health, among others. In connection with this, Villafuerte praised Marcos for keeping infrastructure spending at an equivalent of 5 to 6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and for including in his priority flagship projects the planned Luzon Spine Expressway network that will connect the Ilocos provinces and Bicol. This is expected to cut travel time between the two regions from 20 hours to just nine hours.