PCUP Commissioner for Luzon Atty. Andre Niccolo Tayag seeks to promote ‘Filipinism’.
Atty. Tayag is new PCUP Luzon commissioner
QUEZON CITY – In line with President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s (PBBM) advocacy to revitalize his administration’s trust for unity and solidarity, Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP) Commissioner for Luzon Atty. Andre Niccolo Tayag wants to revive the idea of promoting “Filipinism” following his father’s footsteps.
It may be recalled that Atty. Tayag is one of the “youngest” to be appointed by the President as a commissioner of the PCUP, and he has committed himself to support the programs and policies that would be implemented by the agency’s new leadership under its new chairperson and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Undersecretary Elpidio Jordan Jr.
Despite being the youngest commissioner, Atty. Tayag has proven his competency and qualifications that he is the man for the job.
In an interview, Atty. Tayag emphasizes his utmost desire to ensure that the Marcos administration’s thrust for poverty alleviation and that every Filipino family will attain a better and healthy life in the next six years and onwards.
He also ascribed his advocacy for success to the paternal guidance he received from his father, Bishop Nilo Tayag.
After his release from more than a decade of imprisonment in the early 1980s, Bishop Tayag volunteered directly to Marcos Sr. not only to propagate the ideology of Filipinism among the AFP, PC-INP, the youth, and the bureaucracy but also to serve in the massive urban land reform by organizing the “Dakilang Alyansa ng mga Organisadong Pamayanan sa Pag-unlad” (DAOP-PALAD).
Composed of more than 200,000 families, the early beneficiaries of the said massive urban land reform consisted of several initiatives, among them the Tondo Foreshoreland and Dagat-Dagatan housing projects.
“The urban poor problem has always been with us since unremembered times, leading one famous activist, Jerry Barican, to say that it should be very clear to all of us that being urban poor should not mean remaining poor all their lives,” Tayag cited.
“Under PBBM’s watch, we will invigorate the PCUP through a clear policy of continuing my father’s legacy. In a modest way, there is also continuity in Nilo Tayag’s work, as seen in PCUP’s more recent statement that shows its broadened and expanded policies for and on behalf of the urban poor all over the country that would reduce the poverty rate substantially,” he added.
As a final word, the PCUP official said that it is the fervent wish of the “Kilusang Pilipinismo” that even as the physical and material well-being of the urban poor are being addressed, there should likewise be a transformation of their values through the propagation, inculcation, and internalization of the fundamental, secondary and tertiary values of the ideology of Filipinism.
“The amalgam that shall bind our people in an unbreakable solidarity is the vision of both PFEM [President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr.] and PBBM—that of bringing glory, prosperity, and progress to our country and for the Filipino people,” he concluded.
