Belmonte: Meeting needed on spurring the economy

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte said he would ask President Aquino to convene the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (Ledac) in order to determine what bills are needed to be tackled by Congress to help spur economic growth.

“We ought to be meeting. We ought to be able to agree on things … we need to be touching fingers on this agenda,” Belmonte told reporters.

“The first chance I get to talk to the President, I will ask him to please convene [the Ledac],” he said.

Ahead of Asean integration

Belmonte said he wanted to be able to determine which measures were needed to support the country’s industries, particularly in light of the coming regional economic integration in 2015 of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in which all trade barriers will come down among Asean member-countries.

He said he had invited economic experts, like Inquirer columnist Cielito Habito, to speak before the legislators on what could be done to promote industrial competitiveness in the country and to discuss the real state of the Philippine economy.

“We would like to reach out to other people outside of the staff of Congress in order to get as much input as we can on pressing problems, many of which are economic in nature,” Belmonte said.

The meeting with experts will be held after Congress resumes sessions on Nov. 18, he said.

“I think it will be a good way to start the next session,” he said.

End monopolies

Belmonte earlier said he wanted to see the passage of the antitrust bill that he sponsored which is intended to end monopolies and foster fair competition.

He said he would also like to get hold of a list of bills that had passed third reading in the House but which did not progress to the bicameral conference committee, and would try to push for them in the current Congress.

Meanwhile, Marikina Rep. Federico Romero Quimbo, chair of the ways and means committee, said he intended to focus on the approval of the bills seeking to rationalize fiscal incentives and to upgrade the Customs and Tariff Act.

The two bills have been pending for 19 and 21 years, respectively, and it is time they are passed, Quimbo said in a statement.