Media

Mr. President, my dear colleagues: It has been said that if the ship of state were an ancient balangay, then it is the president who steers; the Cabinet men, row; but it is the head of NEDA who charts the course. Or if you want an analogy millennials can understand, he is the...

Senate Minority Leader Ralph Recto has hailed today’s signing of the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of Republic Act 10754 “as a good gift to this sector this season.” Recto is the Senate principal author of the measure which grants tax breaks to persons with...

The Commission on Audit (COA), the taxpayer’s whistleblower, should be promoted as a “premier destination” for “talented and idealistic millennials” who would like “to do good by going into government service.“ Senate Minority Leader Ralph Recto suggested this “recruitment tack”...

Close to a million students of state colleges and universities (SUCs) will not pay tuition next year if Minority Leader Ralph Recto’s amendment to the 2017 national budget to exempt them from basic matriculation will be carried in the final version of the P3.35 trillion spending...

The Senate has adopted Minority Leader Ralph Recto’s proposal for the creation of a P100-million “emergency repatriation fund” in the national budget to be used by the Labor secretary to bring home distressed OFWs next year. Recto, however, challenged administration lawmakers to...

There is an emerging bad habit among agencies to transfer their allocations to other agencies and then report such transactions as fund utilization. In the case of the Department of Transportation, this is the scheme resorted to in its unused budget for airport improvement...

Senators spearheading the bicameral push to increase the per meal budget of free school lunches are optimistic that the Senate version of the 2017 national budget would carry their proposal. Senate Minority Leader Ralph Recto based his optimism on the admission by heads of the...

The Duterte administration is forecast to spend P26.7 trillion in six years in power, and Senate Minority Leader Ralph Recto wants government to link the rise in expenditures with the decrease in the number of the poor, the hungry and the unemployed. Recto described next year’s...