I am amazed at former president and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s election as the 25th Speaker of the House of Representatives.
The developments that led to Arroyo’s election as the new Speaker of the 17th Congress may have been lightning fast, surprising almost everyone except the 186 House members who gathered the majority vote to declare her as their new leader.
However, the leadership change at the House is a welcome news for me, knowing that we now have a House leadership that has a good economic grasp, vast experience in good governance, and most importantly, sensitive to people’s needs.
Speaker Arroyo is an economist. Thus, she knows the ramifications for creating an economic environment that would be conducive for investments from both foreign and local investors. This could eventually help temper the country’s current inflation rate. The Speaker will also be a big help to President Duterte’s “Build, Build, Build” program by setting in place a legislative agenda that would be in sync with the Duterte administration’s flagship multi-trillion-peso infrastructure program.
As an anti-smuggling advocate and chairman of the Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI), I had the chance to help the Speaker when she was the country’s 14th president. I know she is a hard worker and her work attitude is infectious. She is very particular with the small details of the issues that reach her desk.
To protect and promote the interests of Filipino consumers and the country’s manufacturing industry, then President Arroyo issued Administrative Order No.227 requiring schools and other government instrumentalities to give preference to locally-made products in the procurement of their needs and to import only when their material requirements are not locally available, in support of FPI’s “Buy Filipino, Buy Local” program.
I also had the privilege to attend her cabinet meetings when the Speaker was the country’s president as she would almost always invite me to join the top-level meetings, especially if the topics to be discussed include customs matters and anti-smuggling. And in those meetings, I can only express my astonishment in her work style. She is reasonable, yet discerning; and understanding, yet stern.
These, and countless other milestones and achievements of Speaker Arroyo in her various capacities in the government are testimonies to her dedication as a public servant.
She listens to suggestions from the private sector, even as she consults the affected sectors in her policy decisions. Thus, I can say that our 17th Congress is in good hands.
Congratulations Madam Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on your latest House feat. Rest assured that, just like our full support for your programs when you were our president, the Federation of Philippine Industries will also be behind you in your various endeavors as House Speaker.
In the meantime, let us give the new Speaker a chance to lay down her legislative agenda for the House, and extend to her our full support. And Madam Speaker, the FPI will only be a phone call away for anything that can help you at the House.