Speaker GMA's Nephew Guico Opens to Refile New PSA

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

BINALONAN, Pangasinan – The nephew of a former president and House Speaker was receptive to the call to refile her bill that will open the country for more business competition and employment.

Pangasinan Fifth District Congressman- Elect Ramon “Monmon” V. Guico III said that as long as the bill will be pro - Filipinos he will support it.

 His pronouncement ensued after this newspaper exhorted him that he refiles the amendment of the Public Service Act filed in 2017 by Pampanga Representative Gloria M. Arroyo when he joined the 18^th Congress on July 1 this year.

CONG-ELECT – Then Pangasinan Fifth District congressional candidate Ramon “Monmon” V. Guico, III (second from left) is flanked by the district bet for the Provincial Board Louie Sison (extreme left), quintessential actress Susan Roces, and Guico’s father and namesake then mayoralty bet of Binalonan Ramon, Jr. Photo was taken while they wait for the motorcade of Senator Grace Poe, prolific actor Coco Martin, Abono Party-List Chair Rosendo So, and political figures in Pangasinan in a mammoth political rally held at the Guicos’ owned WCC Aeronautical and Technological College in the town six days before the May 13 poll. Photo by Mortz C. Ortigoza 

"Ya, anything that will help the people to include the district for more development. But as long as it is not at the expense of the environment of the taong maliit na masasagasaan we will be supportive of this bill,” stressed by Guico.

 The solon’s father and namesake the mayor elect of this Eastern Pangasinan burgeoning town is a cousin of the former Philippines president.

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The young Guico shocked the almost two million vote-rich Pangasinan when he defeated in the recent poll by lead votes marquee Pangasinan politician reelectionist congressman Amado T. Espino, Jr. from the 246, 760 voters who casted their votes in the last May 13 election.

The eight towns and one city’s district has 324,319 registered voters as based on the November 2018 data acquired by this writer at the Commission on Election.

Espino, a nine years’ governor of the huge province, routed in the same district then Representative Kimi Cojuangco when they tangled in the 2016 congressional derby.

This newspaper has been badgering Senators Grace Poe, Bam Aquino, Risa Hontivereos, JV Ejercito, and others during interviews with them about the necessity of expediting the amendment of the economic magic bullet PSA.

In September 7, 2017 Congresswoman Arroyo and Congressmen Arthur Yap, Joey Sarte-Salceda, Jose Christopher Belmonte, and Manuel Monsour Del Rosario filed a consolidation of bills they respectively authored on the new PSA and saw its approval in the third and final reading by the almost 300 members' House of Representatives.

The new law will gallop significantly the Philippines economy, just like in Mainland China, Singapore, and Vietnam, as foreign and Filipino investors will own up to 100 percent control of public utilities like transportation, electricity, telecommunications, mining, oil, gas, and others.

These utilities are mentioned in Section 11 of Article 7 of the 1987 Constitution where the law says they could be amended, altered, or repealed by Congress.

As the term of the members of the Senate under the 17^th Congress ends on the last day of June this year, political kibitzers doubt that the members of the Committee on the Public Service will pass it.

“Gusto ko. Kasi siyempre pag naipasa iyon mas maraming pagkakataon na ang mamumuhunan dito galing sa iba’t ibang bansa, di ba? Pag dumami namumuhunan dito mas maraming trabaho,” Senator Poe, the chair of the committee told this writer last month when the latter asked her about the probability of the bill to be acted favorably by the members of her committee a few weeks before their term ends on June 30.

The amended PSA can mitigate if not solve the 2.2 million unemployed (October 2018 data from the Philippines Statistics Authority) and the 7.5 million underemployed Filipinos (2018 PSA), and the 2.3 million overseas foreign workers (2018 PSA) where many of these OFWs have been victims of abuses by their foreign employers and where their children and spouses fall under the scourges of narcotics addiction and spousal infidelity.

Pundits suspected the procrastination of the senators to approve the new PSA was because of the lobby monies allegedly given to them in their electoral bid by big corporations controlled by Filipino oligarchs who do not want competition with foreign rivals. 

Moreover, the other bill Guico mulls to file is on the health care issue after he saw a pathetic sight of a mother and a daughter who undergo an expensive dialysis treatment.

“While campaigning I encountered iyong biro mo mag ina from Alcala both of them walang work pareho sila nagda dialysis three times a day. So nakikita natin doon pagdating ng October max-out iyong number ng sessions nila. So, by the time iyong October November hirap na hirap na sila”.

He explained that he will look how to get government funding on this problem that could financially sustain the medical needs of the poor Filipinos.

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What Charter Change? Just change the PSA to draw investors