Cha-cha train to get going this year – lawmakers

MANILA, Philippines — Regardless of what its bicameral partner, the Senate, wants, the House of Representatives is bent on pursuing this year its plan to revive moves to amend major provisions in the 1987 Constitution that have hindered the country’s economic growth.

“The task ahead is to pave the way for major, long-overdue structural economic reforms, including economic Charter change,” Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo, senior vice chair of the House appropriations committee, said in support of Speaker Martin Romualdez’s pronouncements.

The Marikina second district congresswoman enumerated the sectors that have kept the Philippines a laggard among its ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) neighbors, ranking eighth among 10 member-nations, not just in foreign direct investments (FDI) but also in other crucial fields.

“In the case of education and health, a proper assessment is necessary to determine the required reforms,” Quimbo pointed out, citing as basis the recent PISA results where Filipino students scored dismal rankings in math, reading and science, ranking 77th among 81 countries in all areas. PISA stands for Program for International Student Assessment of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Health problems like the three-year global pandemic COVID-19 should make the Philippines ready should such issues arise again, according to her. “A critical step towards this is to establish a robust and resilient health care infrastructure and develop sufficient human resources for health.”

“As our economy moves forward in 2024 and beyond, there is a growing consensus that reforms are needed in various areas to improve the state of our nation and to uplift the lives of the Filipino people,” Quimbo, a lawmaker-economist, stressed.

“In the case of economic liberalization, there is a consensus among economists and the business sector that the economic provisions of the 1987 Philippine Constitution should be liberalized,” she said, underscoring the need to lift very prohibitive economic provisions in the Charter.

Quimbo pointed out, however, that “amending our Charter must go hand in hand with addressing other critical issues: the cost of power,