Press Releases

When I lost my 2007 re-election bid, one of the first congratulatory calls I made was to the detained Sonny Trillanes. In my mind, here was a guy who, without setting one foot out of prison, was granted amnesty, not by one person but by 11,189,671 people. When he won the

Government was urged to freeze its plan to raise motor vehicle (MV) registration fees as it could be the third of the “triple whammy” against owners of 10.4 million vehicles in the country who are still reeling from higher taxes on oil and cars. Compounding the two TRAIN-imposed

NAIA is near if not past peak capacity that government has no choice but build a new main gateway to the country, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said. Recto said NAIA’s passenger volume had doubled from 20.4 million in 2007 to 42 million last year. “If it is increasing

Kung kulang ang premium buses sa gilid ng EDSA, at walang MRT sa gitna, ano ang alternatibo? Ang sasakyan parang tubig-baha, kung barado ang lagusan, hahanap ‘yan ng ibang malulusutan. Cars, like water, will seek their own way out. Ang nangyari, inilipat lang ang volume ng

Climate change – and the frequent and fiercer storms it causes – is now a macroeconomic assumption of the budget as weather swings wreak havoc on many fronts, from farm harvest to child schooling when schools are used as evacuation centers. Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph

It is the prerogative of the House to suspend hearings on 2019 national budget. We can only hope that after this pause, they can fast-forward their review so that the budget will arrive in the Senate as scheduled and will not jeopardize the traditional timetable of an enacted

The country’s economic managers are “integral and indispensable to the national conversation” on federalism, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said. “You don’t shut them out of the discussions; you bring them in–because the cost of federalism is front and center of

In light of the House proposal for duty-free importation of fish to tame inflation, a resolution has been filed in the Senate for a probe into the state of fisheries so “that permanent solutions, and not just stop gap measures, will guarantee steady supply of a staple of the

The first test of the administration promise that federalism will funnel more funds to grassroots is for it to immediately comply with the Supreme Court decision raising the share of local governments from national tax collections. “The administration is being presented with the