Aksyon Demokratiko presidential candidate and Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso on Monday laid down the 10 pillars of what he described as “Bilis Kilos Economic Agenda” that will be his administration’s guiding principles to accelerate human and economic growth in the country.
Domagoso said the 10-point agenda covers development programs in the areas of housing, education, labor and employment, health, tourism and creatives, infrastructure, digital information and industry 4.0, agriculture, good governance, and smart governance.
Should he win as president, the national government will allot 1.3 percent of the gross domestic product to housing per year to build one million disaster-resilient housing units in six years for the country’s estimated 4.5 million homeless persons, 3 million of which are in Metro Manila.
This includes building vertical housing projects within cities and near workplaces—just like Manila’s Tondominium, Binondominium, and Basecommunity—and prioritizing the passage of the National Land Use Act to hasten settlements development.
In education, the thrust of the Bilis Kilos agenda is to ensure that the Filipino youth are competent, capable, and ready for the digital transformation of manufacturing, production and related industries and value creation processes, also known as Industry 4.0.
Domagoso said he will increase the budget-to-GDP ratio of education from the present 3.17 percent to 4.3 percent, widen accessibility to quality education, and revise the curricula in all academic levels with focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) program.
Since vulnerable sectors will be the most affected by automation, with 50 percent of the workforce having automatable tasks, the government will also upgrade technical and vocational programs to train Filipino workers for the jobs of the future. Training courses for public school teachers will be a continuing process.
The government will also be a major driver in the creation of better jobs and opportunities by providing various interventions and support to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) which comprise the majority of businesses in the country and employ around 63 percent of the total workforce.
To improve the country’s health care system, Domagoso said his administration will build more public hospitals and health care centers throughout the country, with a target of providing 107,000 additional hospital beds in his first 1,000 days in office.
He also plans to achieve a ratio of one doctor per 1,000 Filipinos equitably distributed across the country by providing scholarships to 10,000 medical students per year. He also promised to increase the salary of nurses and other healthcare workers.