'Siguradong Sahod' to substantially reduce poverty

IF I were the country's next president, my overarching program would be to substantially reduce poverty. There are several aspects to this great undertaking. I will deal first with what I call providing "Siguradong Sahod" to a targeted group - those families within the poverty threshold, as currently defined.

Widespread poverty in the Philippines has been a huge problem ever since one can remember. In fact, poverty has been the driving force for the communist insurgency that started a long time ago and which is still going on today. Widespread poverty continues to grow and all the government administrations since the proclamation of the Second Republic had not been able to stem the tide. I believe this problem has not been given the seriousness and the urgency and sufficiency of action that it deserves. It is clearly a case where those who are in a position to do something about it have been accustomed to accepting the suffering of a large number of our citizens and, as a result, have been lulled into essentially just letting the ordinary course of events deal with this existential problem.