Lawmakers have brushed aside criticisms that President Marcos’ “Bagong Pilipinas” campaign is full of empty promises, saying the critics need only ask the people who benefitted from the billions in cash and livelihood aid programs of the Marcos administration.
Deputy Majority Leaders Erwin Tulfo and Janette Garin and Anakalusugan Party-list Rep. Ray Reyes all defended the Bagong Pilipinas campaign, saying it has already benefitted the people.
Tulfo, also ACT-CIS representative, said President Marcos Jr. launched the Bagong Pilipinas campaign in partnership with Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez to fulfill a promise of inclusion, that every Filipino will feel the benefits of recovering from the adverse effects of the pandemic.
“If you are asking me … Bagong Pilipinas was launched by the President not to solve the country’s problems overnight. What the President did in Bagong Pilipinas’ launching was to lift our countrymen out of poverty. That’s what Bagong Pilipinas is,” Tulfo said in reaction to former Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio’s statement that the program was full of empty promises.
“It is not the way I look at it as a journalist. Bagong Pilipinas was launched to help the people because that is the commitment of the Marcos administration that when we are united, we stand,” he added.
Garin said she witnessed how the people, even her own constituency in Iloilo, enjoyed the benefits of government programs in the Bagong Pilipinas Serbisyo Fair spearheaded by Speaker Romualdez.
“On the issue of Bagong Pilipinas, I personally witnessed in my district as I attended some of the Bagong Pilipinas events, where are leaders are present, and so the delivery of services to the people was faster,” she said.
BPSF is a one-stop-shop where hundreds of government services are available under one roof on a two-day event in one province. It has gone to 13 provinces already and the plan is to visit all 83 provinces of the Philippines.
Garin stressed it is too early to criticize the government’s program.
“There will always be people who will be happy with what you’re doing, but there will always be people who will be criticizing you. The important thing is, let’s say at the end of the year, let us assess and see if the people have felt the progress or not,” she said.
Reyes shared Garin’s views and said it is too early for some people to judge the success or failure of Bagong Pilipinas.
“When did Bagong Pilipinas kick off? Sometime in January or February of this year, isn’t it? So, it’s hard to say that he made empty promises if only one or two months had passed. We have not yet been given the opportunity to really see the performance of this thing that we are promoting,” he said.
“Just as Rep. Garin said that in their region she saw the response like BPSF, in Mindoro, it’s the same. The same good feedback of the service fair was registered in Mindoro, the Speaker himself went so that he could personally witness what the BPSF really is,” Reyes added.