Aksyon Demokratiko presidential bet Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso on Monday said if he wins the presidency in next year’s elections, his administration will provide people in far-flung areas with more job opportunities and easy access to other minimum basic necessities to stop the decades-old insurgency problem.
“The insurgency (problem), it boils down to employment. If the person has no job, he is pushed against the wall. Just like in a highly-urbanized city, Manila for that matter, when a person is hungry, the tendency is to disturb his fellow man,” Moreno said during his “Listening Tour” in Calapan City, Orientral Mindoro.
The Philippine communist insurgency is the longest-running armed rebellion in the world that began in 1968.
Efforts to put an end to the communist rebellion through peace negotiations have been tried by different administrations after the fall of the Marcos regime in 1986, but all attempts to forge a just and lasting peace have failed so far.
“I think as long as the person has a job, has access to education, better health care, nobody in his right mind will go against the government. I think that’s the way to do it, to give opportunity to our countrymen, especially in far-flung areas, because they are the ones who are easy to convince,” Moreno said.
Providing for the minimum basic needs that include job opportunities, mass housing, and free health programs are included in his Bilis Kilos 10-Point Agenda for Governance.
“What matters most to me, if given the chance, in the coming months is to create more business. With business, we can create more jobs. With jobs, people’s living will be secured,” Moreno said.
If elected president, Moreno also vowed to cut taxes of oil and electricity by 50 percent and reinvigorate micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to provide more business opportunities.
The tax measures would attract more foreign investors, including independent power producers, bringing in more jobs, and cut the cost of production in agriculture.