Noy vows to fulfill RP’s commitment to meet MDG targets by 2015

MANILA, Philippines – The country is committed to pursuing its five-year Millennium Development Goals (MDG) through good governance, transparency and accountability in government, President Aquino declared yesterday.

The President gave the assurance in a forum on the MDG at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City. Members of the Cabinet, including National Economic and Development Authority chief Cayetano Paderanga, attended the forum. Mr. Aquino said the country is fully committed to the MDGs, like women empowerment, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health care and fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, among others. “We will do all these by remaining committed to our promise to fight corruption.

Better governance, transparency and accountability will ensure more efficient use of funds for MDGs and will minimize leaks and waste in the use of public funds,” he said.

“The millennium goals are a reflection of humanity’s aspirations – to break the chains of ignorance and disease, poverty and injustice.

To end in our new millennium the millennia-old scourges of humankind,” Mr. Aquino added. Quoting his martyred father, slain senator Benigno Aquino Jr., the President stated that the best freedom any government can give to its people is freedom from hunger and poverty.

“With the same commitment, we can achieve the same for our MDGs. We can free ourselves from the chains of poverty and fulfill the great potential of our nation,” Mr. Aquino said in his speech.

“Because that is our pledge, and in the name of all those whose trust has provided today’s foundation for change, we will achieve this. We will rebuild, and we will prosper.

The Filipino people deserve nothing less,” he stressed.

At the same time, the President called on the public to remain vigilant and monitor irregularities in government.

”I expect each Filipino to remain vigilant in serving as watchdogs of the government, keeping our campaign battle cry alive: the end of corruption is the end of poverty,” Mr. Aquino said.”A nation is only as good as its poorest people. What we become then as a nation depends on our ability to provide the needs of our most vulnerable, ensuring a foundation for a more sustainable and prosperous tomorrow,” he said.

“We have already proven that, united, nothing is impossible. What we lack in funds, we make up with heart, faith and a burning and earnest sense of communal responsibility,” the President said.

“The Filipino has proven this to the world, time and again: when once we were shackled by tyranny and oppression, we armed ourselves with compassion and achieved democracy; when once our feet were stuck, muddied by the crooked path, we pulled ourselves out, and began, finally, to walk the straight and righteous path,” he pointed out.

World leaders meeting at a UN summit in 2000 drew up the list of Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs, aimed at improving the lives of poor people around the world.

The eight MD goals are eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, gender equality and women empowerment, reducing child mortality, better maternal health, effective fight against diseases, environmental sustainability and global partnership for development.

Slow progress but renewed energy Jacqui Badcock, resident coordinator of the United Nations in the Philippines, said the Philippines has shown slow progress in efforts to reach some of its goals, although there is renewed optimism under the Aquino administration.”

I think it’s been a little disappointing that there has been a decline in the last couple of years but what I see is a renewed energy in the current administration,” Badcock said on the sidelines of the launching of the MDG progress report.”

The economy needs to attract local and foreign investments to spur economic growth. To do this, physical infrastructure has to be improved, water and power have to be made available at competitive rates and more transparent systems in doing business need to be established,” the MDG report read.

But Paderanga said the Philippines is in serious danger of missing many of the UN development goals, including halving poverty by 2015.There is only a “medium” chance poverty will be halved, a “low” chance that fewer mothers will die while giving birth, while AIDS is still spreading, Paderanga told the forum.

The government also lags in providing basic education and safe water for all, he added. “We need to double or triple our efforts to meet the targets on income poverty, nutrition, dietary energy requirement, (and) access to safe drinking water,” Paderanga said.

Paderanga said the priority was to cut the number of the poor, which he defined as those whose incomes cannot provide their basic food, clothing and shelter needs, to 12.5 percent of the population in five years’ time. Food and fuel shocks in early 2008 and the global financial crisis affected the government’s efforts, he said. The proportion of the poor rose to 33 percent in 2006 and at most, the government will only reduce the percentage of Filipinos in extreme poverty – those who cannot afford basic food needs – to 12.15 percent, from 14.6 percent in 2006, he said. –-Delon Porcalla (The Philippine Star) with Iris Gonzales