PNoy visits Cebu today: Aquino to meet biz leaders here

CEBU, Philippines – President Benigno Simeon 'Noynoy' Aquino III will visit Cebu for the first time as the nation's chief executive to grace the three different events.

Aquino is expected to arrive at 11 a.m. at the Mactan Benito Ebuen Air Base in Lapu-Lapu City and will immediately proceed to the Cebu City Marriott Hotel to grace the Regional Economic Managers Briefing and Dialogue, where 200 business leaders from Central Visayas will also be attending.

Aquino will be addressing the forum to inform business leaders about the economic plans of his administration and at the same time provide an opportunity for a dia-logue.

The briefing in Central Visayas will focus on the developments in the priority sectors such as tourism, food supply chain and business process outsourcing, among oth-ers.

Aquino will be joined by four cabinet secretaries, who will do the economic briefing. They are Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, Trade and Industry Secretary Greg-ory Domingo, National Economic and Development Authority Secretary Cayetano Paderanga, Jr. and Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras.

After the dialogue, Aquino will proceed to Cebu Coliseum at 2 p.m. to meet the volunteers of his presidential campaign.

More than 4,000 volunteers coming from the Yellow Movement of Cebu, Yellow Army Movement, Doctors for Noynoy, Change Politics Movement, Urban Poor, Tuloy Pinoy, Filipino Cebuano Business Club Inc., Lawyers for Noynoy, religious groups, Accountants for Noynoy, and Cebu Army among others will be presenting their manifesto of support for Aquino's administration.

At 3 p.m., the president is scheduled to proceed to the conference room of Cebu Coliseum to grace an event organized by the Department of Social Welfare and Devel-opment.

Aquino will meet with the beneficiaries of the "Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino" Program (4Ps), which is a poverty reduction and social development program that pro-vides conditional cash grants to extremely poor households.

During this event, there will be testimonials from beneficiaries in Cebu on how the program has improved their lives.

According to the Philippine Information Agency, there is no word yet whether Aquino will stay overnight in Cebu or will immediately proceed to Davao City, which he is due to visit tomorrow. -/NLQ (FREEMAN)