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TAGUM CITY—President
Arroyo said the country’s economy is in a “path of
permanent growth and stability” and believed that people
“are now feeling the blessings of development.”
“Our
economy has reached a new level of maturity and
stability, with some of the strongest macroeconomic
fundamentals in 30 years, including a 7.3- percent
growth rate,” she told a counterinsurgency summit here
over the weekend.
The
growth that the economy has been experiencing through
recent years was different compared with what was “seven
years ago,” when she said, “No one thought we could get
more revenues, [run after] tax cheats, strengthen the
peso, [rev up] the stock market.”
“Our
budget [is] close to balance, [we have] lowered the
national debt and [we have] raised employment. But we
have,” she added. She said these were the indications
that the Philippines “is in the path of permanent
economic growth and stability [and] investments are
pouring in.”
She said
she would dare detractors to go around the countryside
where government infrastructure projects were and see
“if people have not really felt the blessings of
development.”
For
instance, she said, she went to the border of Kapalong
and Talaingod in remote western Davao del Norte, which
she also once visited in 1992 as a neophyte senator. “I
passed that very bad and lonely road. And now, what do I
see? A concrete road, the Davao del Norte
circumferential road. And now both sides of the road are
full of banana plantations.”
“New
investments [are there] because the road is there. So
investments are pouring in. And people do not say that
they do not feel the blessings of development? Why don’t
you ask people along that road, the
Tagum-Kapalong-Talaingod road, if they don’t feel any
blessing-of development,” she said.
President Arroyo attended the groundbreaking rites of
the connecting Talaingod-San Fernando,
Bukidnon Road,
to be built on P1.5-billion budget. The highway along
insurgent bailiwick stretches for 85 kilometers.
The
concrete highway was part of the infrastructure
spending-surge that President Arroyo has ordered to
shield the economy from any slowdown in the US market.
Under
her fiscal-stimulus program, President Arroyo has
ordered “a surge in infrastructure projects.” “For
instance, this year, we have allocated P200 billion with
funds coming from the DPWH [Department of Public Works
and Highways] and other concerned agencies.”
She said
the surge in spending was beginning to be implemented in
this quarter. “Let’s spend as much as we can of the P200
billion now rather than later.”
The
Talaingod-Bukidnon Road, for instance, was also a part
of the previous spending that already included the
Davao-Surigao coastal road, upgrading of the Sasa wharf
in Davao City, the 87 farm-to-market roads, more than
500 Botika sa Barangay and almost 400 rolling stores
that sell cheap rice. |
