CONGRESSMAN MIGUEL "MIKE" ROMERO was elected Representative of the Second District of Negros Oriental for three consecutive terms, running unopposed in his final term in 1995. He is currently Majority Floor Leader and Chairman of the Committee on Rules and Resolutions of the bicameral Commission on Appointments, positions traditionally reserved for senators. He is the first congressman in thirty years to hold these posts.

He has consistently been voted among the top ten outstanding congressmen since his first term in 1987 by media organizations, NGOs and academic institutions. Notable citations include those accorded by the University of the Philippines Institute of Strategic Studies and the Consumers Welfare Foundation of the Philippines.

In his ten years as congressman, he has modernized his district with infrastructure projects such as roads, water systems, schools, public parks, markets and hotels topped by the nearly completed Dumaguete Alternate International Airport and the yet-unfinished international port of Dumaguete. His projects are reflective of his national vision "progressive provinces towards a progressive Philippines." He believes not only in a decentralized system of political administration, but in equitable distribution of national resources and opportunities throughout the entire country.

 

This philosophy has led to his authorship of the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) Law, doubling the 20% share of the local government units (LGUs) from the national revenues to 40%. He is likewise principal co-author of the Bases Conversion Law, converting Subic into a Freeport and Clark into a special economic zone. He also co-authored the National Steel Law which put the steel industry exclusively in the hands of Filipinos, as well as the Philippine Economic Zone Authority Law (PEZA), which seeks to put up economic and tourism zones in strategic areas of the Philippines.

 

Rep. Romero was the lone congressional delegate to the 1988 state visit to the Republic of China of then-President Aquino, where he had the opportunity to discuss political and international trade matters with then-Chairman Deng Xiao Ping and Premier Li Peng; and in the 1993 US visit of President Fidel Ramos, where he met with President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and a select group of US congressmen. He has also represented the Philippines in various international conferences of the United Nations (UN), the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the AIPO. He was part of the official Philippine panel which held dialogues with International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Michel Camdessus and World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn during their Annual Directors' Meeting. In these international meets, he has met with Russia's Mikhail Gorbachev, Cambodia's King Norodom Sihanouk and North Korea's President Kim Il Sung among others.

 

Romero is also a law practitioner, businessman and civic leader, having been an officer of the Jaycees and DGGR and Past President of the Rotary.

 

He attended Siliman University from Grade School up to his pre-law years, then obtained his Bachelor of Laws degree from the Ateneo de Manila University in 1962, passing the bar exams in the same year.