National summit on unemployment, power pushed

BAGUIO CITY , Philippines   – President Aquino was asked yesterday to call a national summit to resolve problems on unemployment, power, water and the breakdown of the public transport system.

Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) executive director Luis Corral said   Aquino must lead a national summit to draw up plans to promote job creation and ensure affordable power.

“The President should let the poor speak for themselves,” he said. “The fate of the water and rapid transport programs should not be allowed to follow that of the power sector.” 

Corral said all sectors must rally behind Aquino when he takes up the cudgels on these  issues besetting the nation today.

“Failure to take up these real problems, not the elite discourse on 2016 succession, will be the prelude to an economic meltdown and collapse of his social contract with the Filipino people,” he  said.

TUCP spokesman Alan Tanjusay said a national summit on jobs and consumer issues will catalyze the silent majority who placed their trust in the Aquino presidency.

“The current discourse of assigning blame and politicking on the one hand, and the redemptive forecasting by others for 2016 on the other hand, is not what the silent majority is concerned about,” he said.

“The act of governance is, by its nature, fraught with risk, a party can be turned out of power or validated with a new majority. Also, governance is not about redeeming souls, it is about the governance mechanisms that create policies that provide higher salaries for government workers, for roads that close the distance for goods to reach their markets, and making education and healthcare accessible. It is about who will work, in what kind of job, with what kind of compensation and under what kind of conditions.”

Corral said Aquino must convene all groups so  they can speak for themselves. 

“Instead of being soothed by the siren call of the proxy poor and the substitute proletariat on the relative merits of charity work, Aquino should get down to the task at hand, creating decent jobs and squelching the deficit in power, water and mass transport,”  he said.

Corral said the Left and their “outworn ideological prescriptions” are now outwearing the welcome and tolerance of people wanting investments to create jobs and for the governance reforms of Aquino to create “a window of opportunity.”

Some people are painting a false picture of the administration and others are   distracting Aquino from the real problems he has to face in the last two years of his administration, he added. – With Mayen Jaymalin