Role of mega-regions cited in fight vs poverty

Vice President Noli de Castro cited yesterday the program of the Arroyo administration in creating mega-regions in the country as a focused and effective strategy of fighting poverty through extensive development endeavors.

Speaking at the anti-poverty summit at the Clark Museum , Clark Special Economic Zone, in Angeles City , said that in the case of the Luzon Urban Beltway, the country’s biggest super region, there are 15 mega infrastructure projects whose benefits, once completed, will help the people cross the threshold of poverty.

He deplored the country’s experience in the past decades of implementing several projects but whose expected beneficial effects did not benefit the truly poor.

"The pitfall of trickling down and the phenomenon of immiserizing growth should be relegated to the past as the subject of historical studies. This should not characterize present-day development efforts," the Vice President declared.

De Castro said the Arroyo administration’s development efforts are anchored on the government’s anti-poverty program, and the need to advocate good governance and the need to prioritize programs that will have direct impact on the poor.

He stressed the need of providing affordable dwelling units and basic services for the homeless in urban communities. In line with the government’s housing program, he said that his office has been utilizing land acquisition techniques involving the declaration of public land as alienable and disposable, adding that this would expand land ownership by the poor..

In his speech, Secretary Domingo Panganiban, chairman of the National Anti-Poverty Commission, said that the administration’s poverty-alleviation policies ":have helped an estimated 5.5 million Filipinos out of poverty over the course of five years of the Arroyo administration’s Medium-Term Development Plan.

Last year alone, he said the government had widened the people’s access to credit and capital, providing over P76 billion in loans to small entrepreneurs, farmers and fishers. He pointed out that new land had been brought under cultivation, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in the rural areas.

He cited the government’s efforts to create more employment  opportunities, build more classrooms and train more people for high-paying jobs in business and industry.

"In the coming years, we will continue to direct public resources to this government’s highest budget priorities – modern infrastructure and the national anti-poverty program," Panganiban declared.

His resolve to carry out the primary goal of reducing poverty incidence to 17 per cent at the end of this decade is anchored on food abundance, more jobs and social security. He said the success of the cities and urban beltways depends on the growth of the rural communities that produce the food and raw materials needed for urban development.

"The great battleground for the defense and expansion of national prosperity is the Filipino countryside where two-thirds of the nation’s poor reside," Panganiban said.