Villanueva to focus on fisherfolk

CEBU, Philippines - Bangon Pilipinas senatorial candidate Eduardo “Bro. Eddie” Villanueva includes the welfare of the fisherfolk in a bid to push his platform of “economy in the margins.”

 Villanueva has been visiting different markets and fishing villages where he talked with leaders of the community.

Cebu is among the identified areas where there are a lot of marginalized fishermen in rural areas.

  â€œI am doing this to personally get the pulse of our sagigilid or the marginalized sectors of our society. We will talk directly to the people and find out their dreams, hopes and aspirations. We want to hear straight from them what it is they want from their government and their leaders so we can be better servant-leaders to them,” said Villanueva in a statement.

 Villanueva said he also explained his platform of developing an “economy in the margins” to offset the imbalance of economic growth in the country.

 He cited recent reports that poverty rate in the country has remained unchanged.

 â€œWe have seen the country get a credit ratings upgrade and the local stock market hitting new highs. But development has not trickled down to the common folk, especially to the poor and the marginalized,” he said.

 Villanueva, an economist, also explained that economy should be “aggressive and inclusive” if the common folk like the fisherfolk are to benefit.

 â€œWhat I will push in the Senate is inclusive growth and an economics for the fringes – or ekonomiya ng sagigilid. We need to focus our economic legislative agenda on industrial development by creating an industrial backbone based on agricultural modernization and manufacturing,” he said.

Meanwhile, Team PNoy senatorial candidate Edgardo “Sonny” Angara wants to make quality education accessible to all and to double job creation efforts.

These are his proposed solutions of following a report showing that the state of poverty in the Philippines posted no significant improvement despite economic growth.

“We need to have a job policy and food policy to bring down poverty,” said Angara in an interview yesterday.

Angara said that 60 percent of the income among the poor is spent on food, which means they are the most vulnerable groups with the increasing prices on food. He said that poor families have a very low budget for education but spends more on alcohol and tobacco.

“Education is a long-term investment but government should invest more on education. Fighting poverty is a long-term battle and there is no magic to end it in just three years,” Angara said on criticisms that President Benigno Aquino III failed on its “Walang kurap, Walang mahirap” promise.

According to the latest poverty data released by the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB), the percentage of  Filipinos living below the poverty line has remained almost unchanged in the past six years.

The recorded poverty incidence for the first half of 2012 was 27.9 percent, slightly less than the 28.8 percent recorded in the first half of 2006, and 28.6 percent in the first half of 2009 and 2011.

“In order to get Filipino families out of poverty, we must push for drastic reforms on education and employment generation,” said Angara whose platform is anchored on education and jobs.

If elected in May, the Harvard-trained lawmaker said his top priority measure would be the Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Higher and Technical Education (UniFAST), which seeks to provide more scholarship grants and student loans to deserving students.

Angara also called for the development of agriculture, manufacturing and tourism industries to alleviate poverty and unemployment in the country.

“We should promote these three growing industries in order to create more opportunities for employment,” he said.

The NSCB report showed that a family of five can be considered extremely poor if it is earning P5,458 a month or just enough to put food on the table.

“Poverty deprives the Filipinos the opportunity to achieve their full potential to play a vital role in nation-building. We should immediately advance reforms and implement measures that would make the poor feel the gains of the growth of our economy,” said Angara in a separate statement.  (FREEMAN)