LEGAZPI CITY—The administration of President Rodrigo Duterte is poised to achieve an annual gross domestic product growth of 7.7 percent over the next six years, according to Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda.
Salceda of PDP-Laban Party said given Duterte’s decisiveness, clarity of strategy and cohesive team of pragmatists in the cabinet, his administration would be able to reduce poverty to 15 percent and create some 30 million more middle-class Filipinos.
He said even Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, in a recent interview over Radio Veritas, took note of President Duterte’s decisiveness in a good light and said the “decisiveness of the new government is something you have never seen in many decades . . . the new leadership is really in the right track.”
Salceda, a noted economist, recently drafted a concept paper titled “Philippine Socio-Economic Prospects under the Duterte Administration,” which identified a tailor-fit program of government for the current administration, hinged on what he termed as the “six pillars designed to foster a more inclusive society.”
The paper, an economic blueprint subtitled “Active Citizenship and Responsive Institutions, Competitive Economy and Inclusive Development,” also gives a glimpse of the country’s energy situation and six-year growth prospects.
Salceda, former Albay governor and chair of the Luzon Area Development Council and the Bicol Regional Development council for six years and nine years, respectively, said the Duterte administration opened up an opportunity for a strong, inclusive society based on his winning platform of change, law and order, federalism and social justice.
He said Duterte’s victory indicated that “Filipinos yearn for a competitive economy and inclusive society through a competent, compassionate and corruption-free government that works with a sense of urgency for the people’s better welfare.”