NEW NORMAL FOCUS FOR PH’S NEXT POST-PANDEMIC LEADER
• Our battle against COVID-19 will be for the long haul. We are fully committed to ensuring that all Filipinos get the best possible care in this pandemic.
• We must prepare ourselves for that recovery, we have to create jobs. That’s the first and most critical element in all of these. We need to create jobs for Filipinos
• Our workers keep the economy moving. They are the backbone of every society. It is only right therefore that we give them the proper respect by taking care of their welfare, pandemic or not.
• We are planning and thinking about how to raise the Philippine economy, how to continue what President Rodrigo Duterte did—‘Build Build Build’—and how do we build upon it and make it more extensive in conformation to a larger plan of economic development.
• Let’s prepare for tourism because first of all, the Philippines is really beautiful, we will only put a little. Just put a good road, just clean up a bit, you already have a tourist destination.
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• Even if the cases have gone down, let us not be complacent. To continue on our path to freedom from COVID-19, we need a clear, comprehensive, strategic, and liberating response. This is our Kalayaan sa COVID Plan.
• Many MSMEs were forced to close or let go of employees because of the pandemic, so they need access to financing through a government-assistance program. Our proposal is for a P100-billion stimulus package for affected MSMEs.
• We will use the strength of the executive to ensure that each frontliner would be justly compensated. Hospitals would have enough equipment like ventilators, beds so that those who are sick do not have to queue.
• We should push for more private-public partnerships because we have seen the amount of good that collaboration with the private sector can produce.
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• I commit to offer a ‘Future-proof Strategy’ in the New Normal —one that can stand firm against the many challenges in the coming years and grab the emerging opportunities we have at hand. We need to move forward and fast, otherwise, we will drown in this state of misery.
• Our approach to this health crisis must be proactive, not reactive, based only on science and driven by accurate data and not by ‘pandemic politics’ and never motivated by malevolent and unconscionable opportunism to make money out of the people’s difficulty.
• My economic roadmap will prioritize the expansion of opportunities for our local farmers and fisherfolk to make sure that no one is left behind.
• We will provide a social safety net especially for those who are pushed to the brink. We must bolster and reinvent our Conditional Cash Transfer or the 4P’s program with the overarching principle that every Filipino should bridge the poverty line with a sustainable livelihood or employment opportunities.
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• I’ll focus on life and livelihood. We can learn to live with COVID-19 and go back to work safely.
• Food security is the number one threat to national security. With regard to rice, we will buy and guarantee our farmers that they will not be on the losing end.
• I will continue the Build, Build, Build of President Duterte, but build more schools, build more hospitals, build more housing, because these will generate jobs, stimulate our economy and create opportunities to business and to the people.
• With the hardships of life in our country and the impact of this pandemic on our economy, we need to generate more FDIs (foreign direct investments), more jobs, more sources of income. You cannot keep on taxing our people so that we can run the government. We need to earn [in mining], but we can also be responsible with our environment.
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• We should give health workers competitive salaries. A P50,000 per month minimum wage for health workers is still very low if we compare it with the salaries offered by other countries, but it might be enough to convince some of them not to leave their families behind.
• My economic team – composed of respected and competent people—will implement a sound and viable economic development program that will truly address the poverty issue by creating more employment opportunities.
• The more we impose taxes, the heavier it is for the people. That’s a heavy burden for our countrymen. You’re choking the people because of so many taxes—prices go up because of taxes.
• We will strengthen the Presidential Commission on Good Government and the money that belongs to the government should be given to the government. The reason why our country is poor is because of thieves in government and that is why we need to eradicate corruption.
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• A 20 percent wealth tax should be passed in Congress, but if Congress does not do so, we will employ the People’s Initiative approach to influence the approval of the law to impose a wealth tax on all of the richest Filipinos, and that is where we will get our money for economic recovery.
• We will re-orient our economic system. Instead of prioritizing the welfare of the businessmen, we will prioritize the welfare of the people through employment and competency.
• Let us pursue the development of our tourism sector because it is one of our potential. In the character of our country, it could be our potential for economic recovery.
• We must also prioritize our agriculture and industry. We must not rely on importing all our needs all the time. We need to produce our own.
