WE HAVE a new year ahead of us, with new opportunities, beginnings, and second chances. Filipinos are big believers in starting the year right, and we should all support each other’s wishes for a better, brighter future.
Here is a list of what we wish for Filipinos this year, and we hope that the following will help everyone in 2020.
For our children, we wish for quality education. With the Department of Education’s KITE – K-12 curriculum review and update, Improvement of learning environment, Teacher’s upskilling and reskilling, and Engagement of stakeholders for support and collaboration – and the proposed convening of a Congressional Oversight Committee on Education or EDCOM 2, reviews will be done, and reports and recommendations submitted, so we can implement needed changes this year in our educational system.
Many Filipinos see education as their most important investment for their children. We should make sure that their investment is not wasted.
For our farmers and fishermen, we wish for a year of bumper harvests and bountiful catches. In the 2018 National Conference and Agri-Fishery Research and Development Festival in Sorsogon, I spoke about investing heavily in the agriculture sector. Just as we have “Build, Build, Build,” we should also have “Plant, Plant, Plant,” and “Fish, Fish, Fish.” Our farms and fishing area are natural resources that our people make a living from. It makes sense that we should be stakeholders in uplifting these sectors.
For our civil servants, we wish for proper compensation to encourage the passion for service to our fellow Filipinos. The Salary Standardization Law, or SSL-5 will increase the salaries of civil servants. This should give some breathing room against the continued hike in daily expenses – and motivate them to keep on doing good work.
For example, our teachers’ salaries will increase by 24 percent to 30.7 percent, depending on their salary grade. May the SSL-5 prove to be a windfall for all government employees this year.
For all, we wish for good health. Should we need it, the Universal Health Care Act will help people gain access to quality health services, without financial hardships. Free preventive checkups, laboratory tests and medicines can help us be healthy again, and is particularly important in far-flung areas, where medical services are needed more. We hope the UHC Act can address the issues of back-breaking medical costs that our less-fortunate countrymen can be subjected to.
For all who work hard to put food on the table and roofs over their family’s heads, a wish for a stable, well-paying job, or a successful business. For overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration has benefits and services, such as loan and credit assistance and healthcare taken from the membership fee collected every two years.
We also have the Seafarers Protection Act, the JobStart Law, the Public Employment Service Offices, and the revised Special Program for the Employment of Students. In truth, we wish for our OFWs to come home to better jobs here in our own country.
Innovation, programs, and projects under the Department of Trade and Industry can also help this wish come true. The DTI has initiatives like the Shared Service Facilities Program, which helps startups, cooperatives, and small- to medium-sized businesses refine and develop products and services that contribute to the uplifting of the local community, through the creation of profitable and sustainable practices.
One notable example of government actively contributing to the development of new products is Pinyapel, a pineapple-based paper that can be used for sustainable, environment-friendly print and packaging products. With support from the Design Center of the Philippines, Pinyapel’s potential for manufacturing earned it the Wood Pencil at the 2019 Design & Art Direction (D&AD) Future Impact Awards in New York City.
There are also the Go Lokal! and One Town One Product or OTOP hubs across the country. These can serve as springboards to international attention for local products.
All these align with the “Tatak Pinoy” campaign, whose aim is to promote the Philippines’ brand of creativity, ingenuity, and innovativeness, as exemplified in our workers, craftsmen, laborers, and professionals. Tatak Pinoy will be about how our countrymen can become the best they can be for our country, and through this show the world that we are worth working with and investing in for the future.
May all our wishes be granted and
sustained this year. Let this year be one where we take more steps to a brighter
future.
***
Sen. Sonny Angara has been
in public service for 15 years — nine years as representative of the Lone
District of Aurora, and six as senator. He has authored and sponsored more than
200 laws. He recently won another term in the Senate. (Email: sensonnyangara@yahoo.com| Facebook, Twitter & Instagram: @sonnyangara)/PN
