‘BBM’ stimulus bill to replace ‘Bayanihan’ – Romualdez

Goodbye “Bayanihan” bills, hello Bayan Bangon Muli or BBM bill. Majority Leader and Leyte 1st District Rep. Martin Romualdez, the top speakership contender for the 19th Congress, has revealed that the House of Representatives planned to come up with a stimulus measure under the incoming administration.

And the envisioned bill's name just so happened to follow the initials that identify presumptive president Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

“Oh well that's just because the president's initials are BBM. We've been approached by some folk, 'Uy gawin mo na lang ano, imbis na Bayanihan... gawin mong BBM: Bayan Bangon Muli na bill (Hey instead of Bayanihan... make it BBM: Bayan Bangon Muli bill),’” Romualdez told reporters during a chance interview at a Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) luncheon on Thursday, May 19.

Romualdez, the LakasChristian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD) party president, described the planned BBM bill as a “stimulus package that will allow the incoming president to harness the resources available to him during this closing period of 2022 and address the measures that are needed for the pandemic, hopefully endemic stage of this Covid issue.”

He further said the BBM would help the incoming administration “harness whatever remaining resources [is available] to stimulate the economy and to reinvigorate it.”

It was recalled that the Bayanihan laws became the signature measures of Congress during early months of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 when the government was scrambling to give relief to Filipinos amid lockdowns.

Attending the luncheon at Edsa Shangrila Hotel in Mandaluyong City were San Jose del Monte City Rep. Rida Robes, Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel, Reggie Velasco, and Pampanga Rep Aurelio Gonzales.

Robes, a ranking solon in the soon-to-conclude 18th Congress, said PDP-Laban looks forward to working under the impending speakership of Romualdez in the 19th Congress with the aim of carrying out the legislative agenda of presumptive president Marcos.