Much has been won; much still to be fought for

As President Benigno Simeon Aquino III prepares for his upcoming state of the nation address (SONA), Akbayan Party joins the Filipino people in celebrating our victories these past two years.  Since the people’s break from a corrupt and decadent past, we immediately worked to rebuild and fulfill our dreams. We have planted the seeds of change and reclaimed some of the lost social and political reforms. 

However, while much has been won in the past two years, we believe much has still to be fought for and won to hasten, broaden and deepen the process of implementing essential and far-reaching reforms.

Akbayan looks forward to seeing the struggle for reforms result in the transformation of ambulatory socio-economic schemes into comprehensive social protection programs, that the campaign to weed out corruption will go deeper to its systemic causes to bring about functional institutions and deepen democracy, and that the gains from promoting peace and sovereignty would translate into an independent foreign policy rooted in international solidarity.

We expect that as President Aquino embarks on the second half of his term, the reform initiative would undergo a process of instituting policies and programs that would not only expand the people’s victories but also, hopefully, make the structural reforms both felt and irreversible. Akbayan Party, being a progressive coalition partner of this government and with the support of the Filipino people will strive to significantly contribute to this undertaking.