CAUAYAN CITY, Isabela – Partido Reporma standard-bearer Senator Panfilo ‘Ping’ M. Lacson and running mate Senate President Tito Sotto explained their Budget Reform Advocacy for Village Empowerment (BRAVE) agenda and projected policies for good governance in Cagayan Valley this week with scheduled visits to the provinces of Isabela, Cagayan, and Quirino.
Earlier, Mayor Bernard Faustino M. Dy, Vice Mayor Bong Dalin, and the City Council, staff, and employees warmly welcomed the contenders at the flag-raising ceremony.
Lacson was appointed as the police provincial commander of Isabela from 1988 to 1989 and was the Philippine National Police Chief in 1991.
The three-term senator said that in their platform of governance, farmers and fisherfolk not only in the province but across the country would have the government buy 50 percent of their yield without any middlemen or traders to impede them.
Sotto, vice president under the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), seconded this during the forum at the Faustino L Dy (FLDy) Coliseum to a crowd of 2,000 women, officials, and villagers.
He also emphasized that with such a clean government, a growth curve in the economy will return in support for micro, small, medium enterprises (MSMEs) through sufficient and targeted aid packages.
Should Lacson and Sotto be elected, measures against corruption will be implemented in their administration that also include covert operatives posing as applicants or engaging in other transactions to catch government officials involved in extortion.
Each year, Filipino people were denied livelihood opportunities, health, education, local projects, and equal opportunity due to corruption, with almost P700 billion lost every year the theft of people’s money that goes straight to the pocket of the few thieves who hunger for power, Lacson stressed.
He also committed to a “reformed” 4Ps or the conditional cash transfer program not only to sustain but to be supported with a decent livelihood program for the marginalized sectors.
Lacson also vowed to decentralize the government, as he will push for budget reform to bring down to the country’s villages the excess or unused funds that national agencies fail to consume to the tune of P328.5 billion yearly.
Drawing from nearly five decades in public service, the tandem vowed to work to address the governance issues across the country, as well as the sentiments of ordinary Filipinos to give solutions to the economy, poverty, corruption, and crime.