(Eagle News)–The Palace on Saturday, Feb. 23, slammed Senator Leila de Lima over her comments against the Build, Build, Build program, saying it would rather “ignore” her as “her senses apparently have flown to the cuckoo’s nest.”
“A detained senator from the opposition has described the Build, Build, Build program, ‘grossly inefficient,’ among other nonsensical descriptives and false narratives…We will just watch her in amusement as she cantankerously pontificates like a headless chicken running berserk,” Panelo said.
According to Panelo, while it was true there “have been delays in the commencement of the projects owing to the bureaucratic rigmarole caused by the legal restraints and resort to judicial remedies by the losing bidders, to which the President has expressed his exasperation and frustration,” the program “has already gone out from the burner and many of their grandiose infrastructure initiatives have commenced.”
He said based on the Department of Budget and Management, the infrastructure and capital outlays of the government increased in the first 10 months of 2018 by 50.3 percent—from the P442.7 billion recorded in the same period in 2017 to P665.1 billion.
“The economic horizon appears to be bright per our economic managers,” he said, noting that “the economic measures placed by them have curbed inflation and the prices in the market have gone down.”
In any case, he said the President was facing the hindrances “squarely” and in fact has “started removing them in accordance with the 1987 Constitution.”
“While detractors of this Administration consistently deliberate on how to mudsling the President’s achievements, we remain focused on how to improve the lives of our countrymen through projects that will bring about genuine change for the nation,” he said.
In her latest statement, De Lima had described the Build, Build, Build program as “grossly inefficient.”
For this she cited what she said was a Commission on Audit report that supposedly said that “P73.351-billion worth of infrastructure projects were either delayed, suspended, terminated, or unimplemented in 2017 costing the government P27.647 million in commitment fees to banks.”
President Duterte himself publicly admitted the delays and attributed them to a lack of manpower, among others.
