The Philippine Councilors League, with its 17,000 members strategically distributed in local government units nationwide, can be mobilized as a potent force for constructive nation-building and should support the national government agenda for real and meaningful reforms.
PCL Bicol regional chair, Polangui, Albay Councilor Jesciel Richard Salceda who also represents his local group in the Albay Provincial Board, said local governments’ legislators should support and help push the reform agenda of President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration.
PCL members, he stressed are “modernizing agents of society” in pushing for constitutional reforms that will fortify the role of local governments in pursuing local economic development.
“It is high time the league’s strength and role in nation-building, which have remained unexplored be fully mobilized to help attain the country’s desired socioeconomic growth,” he added.
Aspiring for the PCL national chairmanship, Salceda has been going around to campaign for initiatives and political reforms such as term extensions of elective local government officials and constitutional change.
He also strongly espouses local economic development, climate change adaptation and effective local disaster risk reduction initiatives.
Jesciel Richard Salceda is a nephew of Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee.
He is likewise pushing measures to help build the PCL as a fiscally sustainable institution that would be an instrument of communities in promoting positive changes in the lives of ordinary people towards a stronder Filipino nation.
Should he get to chair the national PCL, the younger Salceda said he will initiate measures to make their league fiscally sustainable, get represented in Regional Development Councils and actively participate in amending the Philippine Constitution.