Defensor, Castelo bare economic roadmap
THE ticket of mayoral candidate Mike Defensor and his running mate Councilor Winnie Castelo on Sunday unveiled their three-point economic roadmap that would enable Quezon City to recover from the crippling coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic.
The first component of the blueprint calls for extending direct financial assistance amounting to P3 billion to jobless, displaced and informal workers, medical front-liners, teachers, policemen, and public-sector personnel.
The second part consists of giving tax and other related incentives totaling P5 billion to businesses, especially small and medium-scale enterprises.
The last component, costing P9 billion, is a combination of an infrastructure program that would provide employment opportunities to city residents and pandemic responses that aim to lessen COVID-19 cases in the city and protect people from the highly infectious new coronavirus.
“We will hit the ground running on Day 1 of our stewardship of the city,” Defensor, incumbent representative of party-list group Anakalusugan, said.
Defensor said their economic recovery roadmap would cost at least P17 billion.
“That’s the initial amount of benefits city residents will get. It’s our way of giving back to them,” Defensor said.
For his part, Castelo said, “From Day 1, we will know what to do to get the city back on its feet by helping residents and businessmen recover from effects of pandemic.”
“We have clear-cut, comprehensive and viable solutions to our problems. We will focus like a laser beam to help our residents recover and keep the economy going. We will help businesses provide employment and services,” Castelo said.
Defensor said their pandemic response program also calls for strengthening contact-tracing, isolation and treatment of COVID-19 patients.
He said the fact that Quezon City is the most populous local government unit in Metro Manila is not an excuse for its consistent top spot in infection numbers.
“Surely, there are better ways of doing or improving pandemic responses, which the city’s current leadership has failed to implement,” Defensor added.
