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News
September 15, 2010
House Speaker
and Senate President pledged more funds for
the MDGs
Senate President
Juan Ponce Enrile and House of
Representatives Speaker Feliciano Belmonte
today promised to work together with
citizens’ groups in increasing the
allocations for programs on the Millennium
Development Goals (MDG) during the
Ceremonial Handover of the Citizens’ Report
on the MDGs held at the House of
Representatives.
“The shadow
report ‘Winning the Numbers, Losing the War:
The Other MDG Report 2010’ intends to feed
into the annual planning and budgeting
processes and the new regime’s six-year
blueprint,” said Isagani Serrano, convenor
of Social Watch Philippines which published
the Citizens’ Report on the MDGs.
“Our hope is to
see an MTPDP and local development plans
that are truly MDG-sensitive and committed
to deliver on the minimalist MDG promises,”
he added.
President Noynoy
Aquino is set to present the Fourth
Philippines’ Progress Report on the MDGs to
over a hundred heads of State in New York
this September. The MDGs is the set of
measurable targets which heads of state
promised to fulfil by 2015 in order to
eradicate poverty and hunger, reduce
inequality and promote human rights.
“The Citizens
Report on the MDGs is a brutally frank
assessment of government efforts and
failures on its commitment to the MDGs. I
call on all government agencies involved in
the implementation of programs to work
closely with those who wrote the Citizens
MDG Report 2010,” said Senator Enrile. “We
are racing against time; millions of lives
must be protected. We need to put our acts
together and save as many Filipino lives as
we can,” he added.
Former national
treasurer Leonor Magtolis Briones, SWP lead
convenor, said that it is obvious that the
financing gap on the MDGs is a major reason
on why the poverty situation is worse in
2010 than when the country started on the
MDGs in 2000.
“An MDG-sensitive
budget will correct the inequalities
highlighted in the Shadow report. A budget
to provide education, health, decent work,
food security for all -- not just for a half
or for two-thirds of the poor – will ensure
that no Filipino is left behind,” Briones
said.
“Government has
to invest more on programs related to MDGs.
We need to honestly evaluate our policies,
and address the issues and massive level of
corruption, especially in the poorest
regions of the land,” Senator Enrile said.
“The lawmakers of this country have long
recognized that investments in healthcare,
disease control, and environment
conservation are long term strategies for
development in this country. To end poverty,
the best thing to do is to put in place a
system of taxation from the rich and spend
it to increase the income of the poor,” he
added.
Meanwhile, House
Speaker Feliciano Belmonte called for
reallocation of funds where it is mostly
needed to achieve the poverty alleviation
goals. “The Citizens’ MDG Report help people
realize that the budget for education and
health barely improved and do not match with
population growth and the need for catch up
for the MDGs, especially in Mindanao,” Rep.
Belmonte said.
Serrano said
that what is needed is for the budget to
support an MDG catch up plan that focus on
where the country is lagging behind—poverty,
education and maternal health. “The national
budgets beginning 2011 until 2015 must be
MDG-dedicated. The General Appropriations
Acts (GAAs) to be enacted for those years
should be pre-audited for their MDG-sensitivity,”
Serrano said.
Rep. Belmonte said that the House of
Representative will help civil society
groups to move the government and the people
to exert more effort especially on financing
the MDGs. “The House will continue to put
the necessary pressure to achieve more
effort on the MDGs. The House of
Representatives would like to thank the
citizens’ groups who wrote the Citizens’ MDG
Report for having monitored the country’s
progress for the last ten years,” he said.
The Senate
President also said that the Senate shall
continue to pass laws on the attainment of
the MDGs and shall continue to scrutinize
the agencies’ programs on the goals. “I
myself will study the assessment and
recommendations from the Citizens’ MDG
Report,” said Enrile.
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House Speaker and
Senate President pledged more funds for
the MDGs,
September 15, 2010
Citizens’ groups
offer Shadow Report to help Gov’t catch
up on MDGs, September 15, 2010
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M pork barrel slash – July 8, 2010
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