Lacson-Sotto tandem to push for more positive interventions
PRESIDENTIAL candidate Panfilo “Ping” Lacson and his running mate Vicente “Tito” Sotto III said that the correct way for the government to intervene in the lives of Filipinos is by boosting their capacity-building instead of passing regulations that only lead to stagnation.
The Lacso- Sotto tandem, banking on battlecries “Aayusin ang Gobyerno, Aayusin ang Buhay ng mga Pilipino” and “Uubusin ang Magnanakaw” for the 2022 elections, vowed to push for more positive interventions once elected to lead the country.
In the two-day Mindanao sortie, Lacson told over 2,600 supporters at a school in Mawab, Davao de Oro that apart from more interventions, the government also needs to capacitate localities starting from the municipal level to make Filipinos feel meaningful change.
Lacosn stressed that the government should be a better partner with the private sector instead of treating companies as competitors, as he Sotto, and the Partido Reporma’s senatorial candidates wrapped up two days of campaigning in the Davao region.
“Alam niyo ang problema kasi ang intervention ng ating national government nasa regulation, overregulated na. Ang kailangang intervention ‘yung positive.” Lacson said to residents of Mawab.
The three-term senator cited as example most local government units which has no capacity in terms of long-term community planning or well-trained planning officers for their towns or cities.
He said the national government could intervene by sending LGU officers to the Local Government Academy or the Development Academy of the Philippines, where they could study how to craft and implement plans properly for long-term progress, the veteran lawmaker said.
Lacson said he already did this in a limited scope as the rehabilitation czar for the Aquino administration in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Yolanda.
Through a $10 million study grant by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the government trained 161 community planners with the DAP, which in turn benefited 171 LGUs in their post-Yolanda rehabilitation and recovery measures.
