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| 20 MARCH 2008 | . | |
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| 20 MARCH 2008 | . | |
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| PGMA bares P1-B fund for program to win people's hearts in fight against insurgency |
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BAGUIO CITY – President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has announced a P1-billion
allocation in the 2008 budget of the Department of National Defense (DND)
for the Kalayaan Barangay Project to help win the hearts and minds of the
people in the war against insurgency. The President made the announcement in her address during the graduation rites Tuesday of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Baghawi Class of 2008 in Fort del Pilar here. In reiterating her earlier marching orders to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to wipe out the communist insurgency by 2010, she told the latest batch of PMA graduates that the “way to win (war against the insurgents) isn’t just through the barrel of a gun.” “Rather it begins with providing a person a job, food on the table and human dignity. Central to that success is to invest in the people -- in education, health care, roads and bridges, not only by the departments primarily in charge of them but also by you, the soldiers, as you serve them in the field,” she said. The government has set 2010 as the deadline to end insurgency in the country. As of last year, the government had succeeded in halving the number of active insurgents in 2001, the President said. She said that “aside from the money that we have put for modernization and also for increased benefits, we have allocated one billion pesos in the 2008 budget of the Department of National Defense for the Kalayaan Barangay Project to help you win the war against insurgency by winning hearts and minds.” During the first AFP command conference of 2008 held in Camp Aguinaldo in January, the President directed the AFP to finally put closure to the decades-old insurgency in the country by 2010. In her PMA commencement address, the President reminded the new graduates of the “multi-faceted roles of a 21st century soldier: not just as a combatant but a military professional, a manager, a partner in development.” “PMA exposed you not only to military science but to other aspects of national life such as the actual experience of building the hopes of our fellow Filipinos through the Gawad Kalanga and distributing relief goods to calamity areas,” she added. The President also exhorted the 220 PMA graduates to help “break the cycle of despair which has kept our nation back.” They will be joining the various services of the armed forces as second lieutenants. “Our central objective is to grow our economy and to do that we must invest, invest and invest. And we have been doing that. We have the strongest economy in over 30 years as a result of the tough reforms we have made to break the cycle of despair which has kept our nation back.” She pointed out that increased revenue resulting from tax reforms “can now be used to provide better education for you (PMA Class of 2008), better benefits as you join the Armed Forces, and better fighting equipment to win the war against insurgency.” |
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| PGMA's Serbisyo Muna Caravan rolls in to La Union Barangay |
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BARANGAY VICTORIA, Luna, La Union -- President
Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo's Holy Week Serbisyo Muna Caravan rolled into this
seaside municipality today (Holy Thursday), bringing with it a pool of
government social services for the poor. Included in the government assistance package that the President distributed here were 25 Masahista Ako kits, 25 Galing Mekaniko Ako kits, planting materials and vegetable seeds for the municipalities of Luna and Bangar; 20 cavans of rice for the Food-for-School Program, 50 Buntis kits; 325 PhilHealth cards, 25 PGMA Training-for-Work scholarship coupons, and P75,000 worth of Self-Employment Assistance-Kaunlaran (SEA-K) checks. This town was the third stop of the Serbisyo Muna Caravan designed by the President this Holy Week to bring government assistance direct to the people, especially the poor in the countryside. Malacanang said that enhanced government services were made possible through the country’s improved economy. The Philippine gross domestic product (GDP) grew by more than 7 percent last year, the highest in three decades. The caravan’s first stop on Holy Tuesday was Malasiqui in Pangasinan, followed by the upland sixth class municipality of Penarrubia, Abra on Holy Wednesday. As envisioned by Malacanang, the Serbisyo Muna Caravan will roll into the depressed areas in Northern Luzon this Holy Week in line with the President's pronouncement that as ''we remember the sufferings and death of God'' this Lenten Season, “ we must also bear in our minds and hearts that there are also people suffering from social injustice.'' ''In the spirit of the Lenten Season, let us feed the hungry, cure the sick, educate the illiterate and give them hope for bright and prosperous lives,'' she said in her Lenten message. “We will continue to work so we could deliver social services and uplift the lives of the poor,” the President said in the Ilokano dialect. She added: ''We can't say that we have moved as a nation if we don’t lift the poor and hungry.'' The President also thanked the people of La Union for their “unwavering support” to her administration as she expressed her happiness in spending Holy Thursday with about 5,000 residents from Luna’s 40 barangays and from the nearby towns of Bacnotan and Bangar who gathered here to welcome her. |
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| PGMA focused on "3 E's" during working Holy Week |
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THE MANSION, Baguio City – President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo continued today
her working Holy Week itinerary by inducting a group that hopes to
contribute to the Arroyo administration’s “highest imperatives:” Economy,
Education and Environment. Flying in from a morning event in Luna, La Union, the President went straight to the main conference room of the “Mansion House” to induct the officers and members of the Cordillera Bamboo Development Council (CBDC). The CBDC’s principal program is to reforest denuded upland areas of the six provinces of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) with the most pliable tropical and temperate trees. Also in attendance during the event were Secretary Cerge Remonde, head of the Presidential Management Staff (PMS); and former Sagada Mayor Tom Killip, now Presidential Assistant (P.A.) for the CAR, who said the CBDC will play a “very important part” in the Master Plan for Cordillera Watershed Development. Killip’s office is spearheading the government’s program to arrest the drying up of the region’s 13 major river systems. The multi-sectoral CBDC is headed by Dr. Rogelio Colting, president of the Benguet State University (BSU), who said that members of the “development-oriented” council come from both government agencies and non-government organizations (NGOs) “working together” to implement the Cordillera Bamboo Development Program. The program will focus on the twin objectives of stemming the disappearance of bamboo from the Cordilleras and tapping the bamboo’s various potential benefits, including its use in the reforestation of denuded mountainsides. The bamboo has both tropical and temperate species that could adapt well to the unique upland Cordillera climate, Colting said, adding that bamboo is also a good absorber of carbon dioxide, and thus would be a good air-pollution control measure for the Cordillera’s fast-multiplying business districts. For his part, Killip said bamboo has also been found to be a very good anti-erosion control plant and would be beneficial in areas suffering from stream-bank erosion. He explained that the CAR’s 13 major river systems produce 42 billion cubic meters of surface water for electricity-generation through the four dams around the region, and for irrigating farms, both upland and lowland, in the Ilocandia, Cagayan Valley and Central Luzon regions. The presidential assistant stressed that the creation of the CBDC was very “timely for the development of the entire Cordillera region for its value as the watershed cradle of the entire Northern Luzon.” “If the watersheds die, the entire agriculture (sector) dies with it,” Killip said as he cited the urgency of reforesting the Cordillera mountains, and arresting river-bank denudation via bamboo propagation. Among the CBDC advisers are Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) General Manager Edgardo Manda, Baguio Bishop Carlito Censon, Benguet Rep. Samuel Dangwa and Gov. Nestor Fongwan. |
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| PGMA inspects La Union rice warehouse |
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SAN JUAN, La Union – President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo continued today to
make the rounds of National Food Authority (NFA) facilities to ensure that
the government’s rice supply and distribution systems suffer no hitches. Arriving here early this morning, she immediately proceeded to the NFA warehouse to check if the facility had enough rich stock to meet the food requirements of the residents of La Union and the neighboring provinces. She was apparently pleased with what she saw when she inspected the warehouse, which was well-stocked with sacks of rice. The President has assured the public that there’s no rice shortage and that the NFA buffer stock of the low-priced staple was enough to meet the requirements of the people, especially the poor. Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap has also allayed fears of a looming rice shortage, saying the country has enough supply to last until the next harvest season that starts next week. The NFA, which regularly releases rice stocks at subsidized prices, wants to maintain its presence in the market to preempt any rice price spirals, especially during the lean months from July to September. The agency has successfully kept retail prices of the commodity stable, but with import costs rising, it has had to suffer bigger operating losses. The NFA said the average daily national consumption of rice has gone up from 26,000 metric tons in 2003 to 33,000 tons this year. This year’s dry season rice production is expected to reach seven million metric tons, higher than the 2007 harvest of 6.74 million metric tons. |
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