MANILA, Philippines — Senate Senior Deputy Majority Chief JV Ejercito renewed on Thursday his name for the rapid passage of Senate Invoice No. 2— the proposed Grasp Plan on Infrastructure and Nationwide Growth Act (MIND) Act.
“It will hit two birds with one stone. I believe this would be the key. It will actually stimulate financial development everywhere in the nation,” Ejercito, an advocate for a nationwide infrastructure masterplan because the seventeenth Congress, stated in a mixture of English and Filipino through the public listening to of the Senate committee on financial affairs and the committee on public works and finance.
“The facilities of development are usually not solely in Metro Manila, not solely in Cebu, not solely in Davao. It must be unfold, like, for instance, in different areas in Mindanao,” he went on.
READ: Gov’t eyes 9 flagship infra initiatives executed by finish 2026
“Railways and mass transit are the keys to sooner motion of individuals, enterprise, and the economic system. Infrastructure improvement is just not just for the present administration. That is for future generations of Filipinos,” he added.
Ejercito’s invoice seeks to institutionalize a long-term Complete Infrastructure Growth Masterplan and create the MIND Council to make sure that main infra initiatives are coordinated, data-driven, clear, and proceed past modifications in political management.
The lawmaker from San Juan stated the federal government should prioritize initiatives that create sustainable jobs and livelihood alternatives as an alternative of creating individuals rely solely on money help packages.
“Let’s not rely solely on support packages. All of us want respectable jobs and livelihoods that can be sustainable in the long term. Assist is simply short-term and never sustainable. What we wish are actual jobs and livelihoods so we will increase the standard of lifetime of our countrymen,” Ejercito stated.
Ejercito acknowledged that the federal government already laid down the coverage groundwork by way of the Division of Financial system, Planning, and Growth (DepDev) Legislation (Republic Act No. 1214) and Government Order No. 72.
However he identified that it’s essential to institutionalize the system by way of the passage of the proposed MIND Act, one in every of his precedence measures within the twentieth Congress.
Through the deliberations on the DepDev Legislation, Ejercito additionally proposed Part 15 to be included within the nation’s long-term imaginative and prescient, targets, and technique for infrastructure improvement within the Lengthy-term Growth Framework.
“If we take a look at our neighbors within the Asean [Association of Southeast Asian Nations], we’ll see how far we’ve got been left behind in infrastructure improvement. This isn’t rocket science. They selected a transparent path and had long-term plans. It’s time we additionally do these,” he stated.
READ: Philippines’ infra spending plunged 17% in 2025
No extra last-minute price range insertions
As the present Senate finance chief, Ejercito stated the Senate would put an finish to the apply of last-minute insertions through the bicameral convention committee and strengthen the participation of native governments in figuring out precedence infrastructure initiatives.
“We are going to now not settle for insertions within the bicam. We’ll make sure that to provide voice to our regional improvement councils and native governments in selecting initiatives to be applied. We are going to now not enable initiatives we don’t find out about or are usually not priorities of the neighborhood,” he stated.
He confused that the lately uncovered flood management anomalies mirrored the implications of fragmented planning, weak mission monitoring, and poor accountability.
In accordance with him, this makes the passage of the MIND Act extra pressing than ever.
“Let’s begin fixing the system. Let’s maintain accountable those that have to be held accountable. However let’s proceed the initiatives that our countrymen actually need,” he stated. /atm
