Of Gloria Arroyo’s political promises, on the same credibility level as those on December 30, 2002 that lied about ambitions, eradicating poverty within a decade is another for the books.

The promise was cast in 2002 at the Asia-Pacific forum of the Socialist International. It was one of four capped by the raising of the moral standards of government and society.

She said her “administration is infusing common sense, discipline, ACCOUNTABILITY and INTEGRITY in governance based on three principles. These are a SOUND MORAL FOUNDATION to guide our leadership at all levels, a philosophy of TRANSPARENCY in ALL government transactions, and an ethic of effective implementation throughout the bureaucracy”. (Caps supplied)

The allusion to moral standards founds a philosophical irony underlying a presidency stolen from a predecessor. It differentiates Arroyo from Joseph Estrada. One, an economist, the other, a drop out. One, an elitist, the other, a populist.

Admittedly, the labels are unfair, even misleading. Both are accused of corruption. But the irony cannot be denied. Estrada fashioned himself the president of the poor. Ironically, Arroyo said she would eradicate poverty.

The presence of one cockroach indicates an infestation. Similarly, one lie suggests an epidemic of falsehoods. To Arroyo’s misfortune, even her official statistics deny her declarations. The involuntary hunger index counts more than a fourth of the population starving while a third wallows below the poverty line.

The other component of Arroyo’s declaration was the modernization of agriculture. Another was to develop a bias towards the disadvantaged. Lastly she vowed the development of free and equitable enterprise.

On the eve of her deadline, each echo hollow. For one whose “bias towards the disadvantaged” means slapping predatory taxes to address unproductive fiscal overspending; one who defines agricultural modernization as the re-channeling of “fertilizer funds” to fatten a one-million votes margin; and one under whom free enterprise is marked by the IMPSA and ZTE-NBN contracts, including the privatization of utilities to friends – such belie an epidemic indeed.

Recently, a Singapore-based investment bank described Arroyo’s economy as one increasingly dependent on foreign debt. This dovetails the analysis of an astute reader who added that taxation is the other prong. Both – external dependence and internal debauchery -describe a stricken chicken ranch economy.

Note the degradation. Early in the year foreign borrowing limits were pegged at 25% of total funding. Three months later, this was altered to 30%. Last week the DBS bank noted Arroyo was relying increasingly on foreign debt despite policy limits.

Soaring costs of money are eloquent declarations of increasing risk. Domestic yields accelerate when the market catches wind that the government might tap the local market for additional debt. One factor is a local bank’s relatively intimate knowledge of domestic weaknesses. That prevailing rates are high reflects these. Already, rates range from 8% in the secondary market for ten-year treasury bonds to over 8.28% on fixed coupon outstanding peso debts.

Because comparable costs for third-party guaranteed Samurais are even higher, these forced a desperate scrounge albeit keeping the Samurai option open for the 2010 election year.

Such desperation impacts negatively on treasury auctions. Recently, the treasury had to reject all bids as these would have moved borrowing costs beyond 8.30% to as much as 8.375%.

The apprehension of the funding market is telling. The market is not stupid. The increasing dependence on foreign debt is our last card. With two months left in 2009, Arroyo continues to borrow over US$ 1 billion in addition to previous flotations of US$ 1.5 billion and US$ 750 million, including an aborted US$ 1.5 billion in Samurais.

In each, the justifications shift from a stimulus, to pre-emptive deficit funding for 2010, to disaster rehabilitation. Sources say government now needs to borrow another US$ 2 billion from foreign commercial creditors and US$ 1.8 billion from multilateral lenders. These result in a pathetic dependence on the kindness of strangers and the prostitution of economic independence.

Because unbridled foreign debt inflates relative peso values thus dampening demand for domestic goods and adversely affecting an already adversely affected manufacturing sector, added to internal debauchery, we are virtually screwing ourselves.

Far from eradicating poverty and even farther from upholding moral uprightness, Arroyo has buried us deeply in debt. From Gilbert Teodoro to Hermogenes Ebdane and Bayani Fernando, should Arroyo’s 2010 bets represent a perpetuation of her policies, then they might each share a third of Teodoro’s pitiful one percent. That’s not a ranking. That’s an indictment of her promises and her vaunted economics.

After a series of committee hearings, the Technical Working Group so created to come up with its various recommendations on the Comparative Matrix of Constitutional Convention Measures headed by Rep. Barzaga should be about through with its final recommendations that would pave the way for the preparation of the Committee Report which would then be deliberated upon at Plenary. What is interesting to note here is the fact that there had been no document whatsoever that purports to contain the proposed amendments or revisions should the ConCon been established. That is not to say however that Chairman Ortega did not mention, on record, that he can volunteer to give the committee a copy of 30 to 40 proposed amendments that were researched by his committee staff.

What will be taken up todat will only focus on the calculations with regard to the budget for this ConCon as would be determined by the TWG. All the nitty gritty of the resulting ConCon proposal are deemed to have been sufficiently discussed, debated, and voted upon with the requisite quorum and participation of any contrarian. In other words, the democratic criterion could be said to have been reasonably met. At no point in time can anyone then claim that the entire ConCon was a fiasco or that it was railroaded.

After today’s possibly last committee hearing, ConCon has effectively come into existence, officially. And all that may be finally required is for this resolution and bill to be voted upon after a presumably smooth flow of sponsorship, debate and discussion. There are no signs whatsoever that anything would obstruct its final passage by the House of Representatives. That is sure quite different when the move to propose charter change via ConAss was met with violent reaction from society writ large.

ConCon did not invite disaster. Why?

Observers of trends may be led to ask – is ConCon better than a ConAss? We must have struck a cord here. For truth is, with the birth of this ConCon, it did not effectively shelve aside that earlier ConAss resolution which has been already approved in so far as the House of Representatives is concerned short of its transmittal to the Senate.

Thus, the real scenario is this – there is an existing House Resolution for a ConAss as well as a distinct and separate House Resolution for a ConCon at the House of Representatives. That almost explains the existence of the best possible scenario as well as the worst possible scenario, come to think of it should any of two options be resorted to. Malacanang is uncharacteristically silent and the otherwise turbulent political waters seem calm. Wouldn’t there be anymore a shift to a parliamentary form of government as would prepare the ground for former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to become its newly-installed Prime Minister?

The whole task of setting the public mood for whatever possible scenario may be chosen is part of territory. It is not difficult for GMA to convince everyone to bat for a ConAss and for the same to pass even at the Senate. To my mind, GMA can always resort to BF Skinner’s tested paradigm of the “Ideal Society” wherein she will just share the bounty, call it ‘loot’ if you will, in order to court favor from across intelligences. It bears watching what happens next.

MANILA (Reuters) – The youngest daughter of former Philippine president Corazon Aquino said on Sunday her family had differences with the government, one reason why they had decided against a state funeral for the former leader.

Film and television star Kristina Bernadette Yap, popularly known as Kris Aquino, said there was an offer from the government to give her mother a state funeral befitting a former head of government, but her siblings turned it down.

Ironic that such a take on things would come from the daughter of the ex-president, considering that many have already warned of the onslaught of the dark and backward forces of politicisation already circling like vultures around the burst of patriotic fervor surrounding Corazon Aquino’s death.

Forgive my even simpler take on things, but last I heard, there is a clear difference between the State and a Government. That is why we attach a name to a government; usually the name of whoever heads or headed it. So we have “the Aquino Government”, or “the Arroyo Government”. However there is only ONE state that transcends all of these governments that come and go — the Phlippine State. The primacy of the Philippine State lends us a bit of sense around our predisposition to call ourselves “Filipinos”. Regardless of what Government is in power and WHO is leading it, the Philippine State exists. We are not Aquinoans or Arroyoans, we are “Filipinos”.

So my question, as always, is quite simple.

Why drag the State into one’s squabbles with a Government?

Let me re-state it in a way that makes it stand out as one of those issues that our so-called “experts” have so expertly and sensationally muddled (as they tend to do) over the last couple of weeks:

The rejection of state protocol on the basis of the behaviour of a government currently in power.

If we are to rely on a further paraphrasing of Kris Aquino’s take on this by a commentor in FilipinoVoices.com, a rationale that appeals to typically-Filipino sensibilities is that…

[...the Aquino family would] rather get the honor from the people [...]

Absolutely. As would any person who served The State could only hope for in death. But the missing piece here is a clear understanding of what we mean when we utter the words “the people”. Is it a crowd that gathers on the streets? Or is it what is embodied by the State known to the rest of the world as “the Republic of the Philippines”?

That is an argument that harks back to that old, tired, but all-too-familiarly-muddled Margalloan thinking of preferring to see a street mob as the embodiment of the “people’s will” rather than a formal structure to represent it.

One word summarises the above chronic syndrome:

Primitivism.

It is no wonder that time and again, Philippine society has demonstrated its utter lack of capacity for self-organisation; because we prefer chaotic blobs to embody our ideals rather than work on developing coherent structures to embody them consistently.

—————–
Epilogue:

After having said all of the above, let’s not forget that all this was really because “[Kris's] family had differences with the government”.

And…

[...] the differences stemmed from a government decision to recall two soldiers serving as her mother’s security detail after the former president called on President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to step down in 2005.

So you see, folks, it is all quite simple after all, really™.

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- President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo

In her 9th Sona

One can indeed tabulate or put in a matrix the more empirical data presented in PGMA’s 9th or nth Sona. Or, let us run them down in simplified form, to wit:

1. lower public debt to GDP ratio from 78% in 2000 to 55% in 2008

2. cut in half debt of government corporations from 15% to 7%

3. foreign debt from 73% to 32%

4. IRA allocated P40 billion

5. Pantawid Pamilya benefited 700,000 beneficiaries in cash handouts

6. CARP benefited 700,000 indigenous people in un-numbered millions of hectares of land and land ownerships to 1 million beneficiaries

7. Micro Finance benefited 7 million entrepreneurs in P165 billion loans

8. NFA rice sold at P18.25 per kilo compared to P30 in the market; palay bought at P17 from only P11

9. farm-to-market roads in un-numbered thousands of kilometers

10. cut in half prices in 16 or more drugs

11. health insurance covered 86% of population

12. Emergency Employment Program benefited 100,000 beneficiaries

13. Pabahay at Palupa benefited 1 million families

14. Pantawid Kuryente benefited 7 million small households in P500 rebate

15. built 95,000 classrooms; 60,000 new teachers; teacher training for 100,000 English teachers at an appropriation of P1.5 billion

16. provided college and post-graduate education for 600,000 scholars

17. pardon given to 700 OFWs in Saudi through GMA’s intercession

18. OFWs in Kuwait were commuted death sentences through GMA

19. net foreign direct investments multiplied 15 times

20. OFWs more than doubled foreign exchange reserves to grow to $3 billion

21. uninterrupted growth of 33 quarters; more than doubled from $76 billion to $186 billion; average GDP growth from 2001 to the 1st quarter of 2009 is highest in 43 years

22. number of poor reduced by 2 million

23. GNP per capita rose from a Third World $967 to $2,000

24. 8 million jobs created at the average rate of 1 million a year

This has become a grocery list of real or imagined accomplishments although it is rather nebulous to suppose that the $16 billion in OFW remittance could have been occasioned by the improved social and economic environment obtaining in the Philippines. Similarly, it could not be made to account on the uncharacteristic resiliency demonstrated by the BPO industry which is at best simply culture bound, not induced by any positive economic indicator.

We have yet to find the figures on how indeed net foreign direct investments could have multiplied 15 times from out of GMA’s 51 foreign trips in some 30 countries around the world. Fact is, the reduction in the number of the poorest amongst our brothers by 2 million only means obliquely that there is more work to do to reach out to an even much larger population.

The simple fact that P40 billion was injected into the IRA to benefit all local government units only reflects that Skinner’s pecking pigeons psycho-therapy now earns her ‘political dividends’ in case she decides to cross 2010. It is not that easy to believe that foreign debt would have gone down from 73% to 32%. In the same vein, there is reasonable doubt to believe whether indeed GNP per capita rose from a Third World $967 to $2,000.

Demonstrably, the GMA government has exercised state intervention in business with the price control policy on selected drugs. When the government has compelled the refund of P500 to low-end electricity consumers, it is not as if it is welcomed by Meralco.

And after the EVAT which serves as a reliable catch-basin for all programs requiring state subsidies, here might come legislative measures to effect sin taxes in sin-labelled products as if it were not the larger population of poor citizens who buy these stuff. Well, a whole host of criticisms can be hailed against PGMA but it did not seem to console cynics, heretics, and prophets that on purpose, she did not categorically say what they want to hear from her.

Incidentally, these stated ‘facts and figures’ could be made as good units of reference in coming up with some criteria in the choice of the upcoming president, whoever she or he may be. Maybe, with all these in sight, it is high time to do some Kepner for those who please.

Thus the question remains, is it going to be the 9th and final Sona of PGMA or it can go nth? In the final analysis, it might have been GMA’s own glass house that has dropped to the ground since her ‘counter-affidavit’ against critics can simply boomerang. – (Second of 2 parts).

One, GMA earns negative ratings in all sectors – “34 in socio-economic Class D, 28 in Class ABC, 22 in Class E, 35 among men and 26 among women”.
Two, in Mindanao, GMA drowns from a “bad negative 40 to a poor negative 21” which means from 62% dissatisfied and 22% satisfied to 53% dissastisfied and 31% satisfied”.
Three, in Visayas, again GMA gets a “bad negative 33 to a poor negative 28 which means 61% dissatisfied and 28% satisfied to 57% dissatisfied and 30% satisfied”.
Four, GMA earns a “bad negative 37 in urban areas and a poor negative in rural areas”.
Five, GMA’s net rating outside the metropolis on the country’s main island worsened from a poor negative 24 to a bad negative 32”.

In the context of the above givens and with 12 more days to go before GMA’s last and final State of the Nation Address, the president’s advisers may have to do some work in ‘knitting’.

It is rather revealing that among Filipino adults in Luzon but outside of Metro Manila, the dissatisfaction as reflected by this June 19 to 22 survey even ‘intensified’ and that the rest of Luzon even “dropped from 29% in February to 23% last month”.

It remains a rather crippling constant that Metro Manila remained highly critical of GMA with “65% of respondents dissatisfied and 19% satisfied for a bad net rating of negative 46”. On a nationwide net rating basis, GMA gets a “bad negative 31” which means “56% dissatisfied and 26% satisfied”.

And what exactly it is we hear from GMA’s rabid ‘defenders of the faith’? They are saying as they have always said as a matter of bureaucratic protocol if not motherhood statement that “performance is not popularity”. Thus, the Palace is said to have advised the “public to listen to GMA’s SONA come 27th July 2009 to know more of her accomplishments” which coincides with the anniversary celebration of the Iglesia ni Kristo.

This is what U/Sec. Gary Olivar said – “We will state this: The President governs for performance and prosperity not for popularity”. According to him, the forthcoming SONA outlines and summarizes GMA’s “substantive achievements’ during her watch. Well said, perhaps or shall we not say – “tell it to the Marines”?

Since surveys are never known to have been acceptable to whom it may have “disfavored”, then we can begin to look at these statistical findings as ‘diagnostic’ or an enlightened estimate on the state of affairs. Is RP a healthy functioning democracy? Is the president whom people have elected via a supposed-to-be fair, clean and honest elections except that the “hello Garci” points to something else, really aboveboard, beyond reproach and rebuke all throughout her term in the presidency (invariably ‘entrusted’ or possibly ‘stolen’)?

Rather than merely shrugging off the normative value of surveys which appears to be an act of intellectual snobbery if not arrogance, why can’t the advisers of the President also commission a polling circuit just so to do an honest-to-goodness reality check? Surveys, to the extent that they can correctly capture the true signs or symptoms of something problematic, remain a normative guide that must be taken into account however disfavored Malacanang maybe be by this SWS’ latest results.

It challenges reflection what surveys really end up doing. Do they embarrass the president? Do they paint a thorny picture of governance? Do they take away trust in the president’s ability to do the right thing? Are surveys to begin with, scientific?

In other words, something ought to be dysfunctional somewhere if the situation is such that a persistently moving down negative satisfaction and trust ratings are always registered in the scoreboard of GMA than her spin doctors may be willing to accept to be true. Come to think of it, even Obama suffers from this same fate and some leaders in Latin America.

For instance, based on the Harris Poll of March 23, 2009 alone, results do show that ‘while a majority of Americans give President Obama’s overall performance high marks, the same is not the case in his performance on the economy’. In short, ‘53% gives Obama negative marks while 47% gives it positive ratings’. And what about Jacob Zuma of South Africa with surveys saying he will do a good job as president at 40% and the same 40% saying otherwise, with 20% reflecting the “don’t know” response?

Again, to the extent that such negative ratings could deliver truly negative impact upon the presidency of GMA and her brand of governance, from where I stand, it would seem to destroy the path toward that final day in 2010 when she ought to officially turn over the presidency to the next successor. Sadly, GMA is leaving the gate of the Palace more unpopular than when she first came in. For one, to my mind, surveys evoke some notions of “moral embargo”, true or not. Well then, has GMA been that ‘evil’ or bad our president, pray tell?

The government of the day has decided to push the envelope in its territorial dispute with China over the comparatively small region of the Spratlys off northwestern Palawan.

http://www.american.edu/TED/spratly.htm

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo must have felt she was caught between the proverbial devil and the deep blue sea in terms of meeting a supposed May 13, 2009 deadline set in the United Nations Convention on the Law Of the Sea for nations to file claims defining their extended continental shelf, and of  not ruffling Beijing’ feathers.

The rich mineral resources believed  nesting under the Spratlys which some have estimated to be worth upwards of 20-billion dollars certainly factors into the dispute given how expanded continental shelves are reckoned compared to other parameters in the definition of a nation’s boundaries.

But China’s immediate protest of Mrs. Arroyo’s decision to sign the new Philippine Archipelagic Baselines Law cannot but raise renewed concerns.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-03/11/content_7569668.htm

Executive Secretary Eduardo asserts the position of Manila quite boldly:

We are sending the message to the whole world that we are affirming our national sovereignty and protecting our national interest. This is the right thing to do. “Whatever problems we may have [on the contested territories], whatever action will have to be contested, will have to be done with the code of conduct agreed upon by the [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] and China.

Ermita is apparently referring to this key stipulation in the Code:

4. The Parties concerned undertake to resolve their territorial and jurisdictional disputes by peaceful means, without resorting to the threat or use of force, through friendly consultations and negotiations by sovereign states directly concerned, in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea;
5. The Parties undertake to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability including, among others, refraining from action of inhabiting on the presently uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays, and other features and to handle their differences in a constructive manner.

http://www.aseansec.org/13165.htm

Taking Malacanang’s position at face value, it may be that Mrs. Arroyo is convinced fully that she has done the right thing.

I will grant her that, given that she still has 4 months left in her term.

But as an ordinary Filipino I am asking myself what will happen if China, given its previous wrangles with other countries who also claim parts of South China Sea (notably Vietnam and Taiwan), takes military action against the Philippines?

http://www.american.edu/TED/spratly.htm

Will the Philippines be able to respond in kind to credibly assert its enactment of the new Baselines Law?

Postscript:

GMA also may have a new diplomatic card up her sleeve: the designation of a Permanent Ambassador to ASEAN.

Former sentor and ex-defense secretary Orly Mercado, apart from his legistave and executive department credentials, is a journalist.

Mercado began his career in the broadcasy industry with ABS-CBN, heading DZAQ Radyo Patrol which returned as DZMM in the post EDSA 1 era.

Mercado, who holds a doctorate degree, was until recently president of the long-sequestered Radio Philippines Network Channel 9.

His being posted in Jakarta will face its first test with the Spratlys dispute heating up.

Another interesting point with GMA’s signing into law of the Baselines Bill is its timing. she having just come from the annual ASEAN Summit.

It must be noted here that the Spratlys are also clamed wholly or in part by Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei, along with Vietnam and Taiwan.

Erratum: Thailand is not among the claimant countries.
]]> http://filipinovoices.com/the-new-philippine-baselines-law-and-the-spratlys-dispute/feed 20 http://filipinovoices.com/barack-obama-prodded-on-rp-china-tiff-over-spratlys http://filipinovoices.com/barack-obama-prodded-on-rp-china-tiff-over-spratlys#comments Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:54:12 +0000 Ding G. Gagelonia http://filipinovoices.com/barack-obama-prodded-on-rp-china-tiff-over-spratlys

The Asia Center of American think tank Heritage Foundation has issued an analysis authored by the center’s  director prodding Washington D.C. to take notice of the security implications in the Asia Pacific region of the Spratly islands territorial dispute.

Mr. Walter Lohman’s February 26 report points out in a forthright tone that China’s expansionist designs are obvious and could be lead to a serious crisis several years down the road.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/upload/wm_2313.pdf

Lohman’s analysis is anchored on the recently passed Philippine territorial baselines bill which is awaiting President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s signature but has been protested by Beijing.

Lohman’s piece is a cogent recitation of the diplomatic impasse.

One matter though, if indeed the baselines bill becomes law it remain to be see if the revision of the Philippines’s international treaty limits genuinely promote the nation’s interests or put them at risk.

Most instructive is a recent report by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism here:

http://www.pcij.org/blog/?p=2239

The main Philippine outpost  over at the Spratly’s Pag-Asa Island could become the next flash point:

http://midfield.wordpress.com/2009/02/21/pag-asa-islandthe-next-flash-point/

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/150635/Poll-lawyer-wants-Comelec-chief-commissioners-to-resign

Atty. Romulo Macalintal is no ordinary lawyer.

He belongs to a select sub segment of the profession that specialize on electoral law in this election crazy country.

But more than that, Macalintal’s top client is President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

So when Atty. ‘Mac’ has a complaint about a case people tent to listen.

But when the good lawyer stakes his profession and dares the chairman of the constitutional elections body to resign, it is something to take a serious look at.

It turns out one of Atty. Mac’s other clients recently lost an election protest before the COMELEC and he’s aghast over what he claims is rank incompetence in the poll body.

Chairman Melo surely has some explaning to do since Macalintal’s claims, if correct, could open up a can of worms about the quality of work at the poll body.

But Atty. Macalintal also better be absolutely sure that he is on the right side of this argument  given that people cannot but feel that his tantrum maybe  have something  to do with his ‘influential’ closeness to GMA.

It also must resonate that this is not just a personal matter to him but is part of a larger advocacy to help the COMELEC do a better job with the 2010 pollsa just 14 months away.

The debate now over the automation of the polls is not in center frame with the COMELEC again being given billions to buy and set up a system.

Unresolved is that Megapacific deal where the IT provider was found to have been an overnight start-u.

The SCORP had ordered the COMELEC to recover the monies paid out in the deal but nothing has happened.

Chairman Melo has yet to explain what they have done to comply with the SCORP directive.

So with new bidding/s due for the 2010 polls IT infrastructure, the COMELEC cannot afford to have public trust in it eroded , and public opinion against it.

tessie oreta joins tito sotto, ralph recto, butch pichay, chavit singson and other losing team unity bets in the arroyo cabinet. here is the release from the palace…

MALACANANG announced the appointment of former Senator Tessie Aquino-Oreta as Secretary of the newly-created Early Childhood Care and Development Council (ECCDC).

The Council was created by Executive Order 778, “Transforming the Council for the Welfare of Children into Early Childhood Care and Development Council,” signed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. It was authorized by the ECCD Act. Its principal author, former Senator Tessie Aquino-Oreta, has been appointed Chairperson of the ECCD Council with a rank ofCabinet Secretary.

The former legislator has accepted the position with a great challenge of helping the parents raise their children in a proper way to cope up with the global demands.

The country’s most vulnerable and often most neglected citizens will receive badly needed government assistance under the newly created “Early Childhood Care and Development Council.”

“My advocacy for children’s welfare remains whether or not I have a position in government. I intend to strengthen that commitment so that the Filipino child can have a fair start,” Aquino-Oreta said. 

The ECCD Council will provide support to children ages  6 and under by promoting their rights to survival, development and special protection with full recognition of the nature of childhood and its special needs. The Council will also support parents in their roles as primary caregivers and their children’s first teachers.
        
She expressed optimism that the young children who receive ECCD services are more likely to finish the full basic education cycle. She believes that young children who are well nourished, healthy and fully developed in mind and body will have the interest, energy and stamina to go to school everyday.

“The ECCD Council will complement all efforts to develop the Filipino child’s fullest potentials by nurturing them during the vital years from 0 to 6.  We will help establish Mother Care Communities and educate mothers to become Mother Mentors.”

The Council will be responsible for institutionalizing a National System for Early Childhood Care and Development that is comprehensive and sustainable and that involves multi-sectoral and inter-agency collaboration at the national and local government levels. It will also integrate service providers, families and communities in both public and private sectors, non-governmental and professional associations and academic institutions.

Other members of the Council will include the Secretaries of the DSWD, Department of Education and Department of Health and the President of the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP).

Before being elected to the Senate in 1998, Aquino-Oreta became Representative of the lone district of Malabon-Navotas for three consecutive terms (1987-1998). In the House of Representatives, she authored and co-authored about 280 in which 79 have been enacted into law .

In the Senate, she was able to file  197 Senate Bills and Resolutions from 1998 to 2004.

Because of her numerous contributions in public and government service, the lady legislator has received the Filipino-Chinese Federation of Business and Professional Women of the Philippines award for government in 2000. (end)