Government to hold virtual Pre-SONA forum on July 8

By Prince Golez

Malacañang’s economic and infrastructure teams are set to present the government’s plans for post-pandemic recovery at the first Pre-State of the Nation Address (Pre-SONA) forum to be held this week, according to the Department of Finance (DOF).

The virtual Pre-SONA forum, titled “Regaining Momentum, Accelerating Recovery in a Post Covid-19 World,” will be led by Economic Development and Infrastructure Cabinet Clusters of the Duterte administration on July 8.

“This year’s Pre-SONA forum will be different, as our audience will be purely virtual. We do hope that our citizens will be able to tune in as the country’s top decision-makers discuss our path to a quick and strong recovery from this crisis,” said DOF Assistant Secretary Antonio Lambino II.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III and Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar will present performance updates and priority plans on the economic and infrastructure fronts, respectively.

Acting Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua will speak on the Philippine Economic Recovery Program.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno will give updates on the monetary, external, and financial sectors.

Meanwhile, Lambino also invited everyone to raise any questions about the Philippine economy during the forum.

“The mechanics for sending questions are simple: you just have to record yourself asking your question and post it on your personal Facebook account. Afterward, tag the DOF (fb.com/dofph) and DPWH (fb.com/dpwhph) Facebook pages on your post and use ‘#PreSONA2020 #AskYourCabinetSecretaries’ so we can see your entries,” he explained.

The official told the public to keep the maximum duration of the video to 45 seconds and to ask only “one specific, objective, and concise question per video.”

“Please also set the privacy of your post to ‘public.’ We will be retrieving all questions from July 1 to July 5, 2020. Selected videos will be answered by the Cabinet Secretaries during the Pre-SONA forum on July 8. But questions that will not be featured because of the limited time will be answered on another platform.”

Pre-SONA forums are held annually to discuss in greater detail the achievements of the government in the previous year and the priorities of the Cabinet cluster heads in the run-up to the President’s SONA on July 27.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)