Former GMA allies back Noy's road map

MANILA, Philippines -  Former Arroyo administration allies now part of the pro-Aquino majority coalition in the House of Representatives supported yesterday President Aquino’s development road map for the coming years.

Palawan Rep. Antonio Alvarez, vice president of the 46-member National Unity Party (NUP), said the President’s speech marking his first year in office on Thursday “was just the curtain raiser for the main event – the launch of the 2010-2012 Philippine Development Plan (PDP), titled Pilipinas Natin.”

“So those who are complaining that there was no plan put forward were probably fiddling with the TV remote. The PDP is not just a map of the road ahead but a glue that will hold the country together as well,” he said.

“Now that the vision has been set, all the President’s men must be up to the task of implementing it, because a blueprint, no matter how beautiful, must be translated into reality. The yearly expression of the plan is the annual budget. Dreams will fail if they are not funded,” Alvarez said.

“Our party is foursquare behind the President as he works to solve the country’s problems. As this is a shared responsibility, we are responding to his challenge to bayanihan and call for solidarity,” he added.

The NUP is composed of members of the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi), the second ruling party during the Arroyo administration after Lakas.

In 1997, then Sen. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, now representative of Pampanga’s second district, formed Kampi. She was then planning to run for president in the 1998 elections before agreeing to become the vice presidential running mate of then Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., who was Lakas standard-bearer.

In his speech before a group composed mostly of young people, the President referred to a “Pilipinas Natin” slogan but did not say if it was his administration’s medium-term development plan for the country.         

While Alvarez saw a road map in the President’s first-year-in-office address, the head of the House opposition bloc, Minority Leader Edcel Lagman, missed it, if it was really there. Lagman said the Chief Executive “failed to talk on his performance relative to his 16-point social contract with the people on good governance, economy, education, health, justice and principal reforms, among others.”

“He failed to address the deteriorating prime economic and social indicators like the bleak data on poverty, hunger, joblessness, investor and consumer confidence, including his centerpiece program on anti-corruption where the rate has even aggravated,” he said.