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By Arcangel A. Estores, Contributor
The Arroyo administration is actively addressing
the corruption, poverty, education and other concerns of the youth,
President Arroyo and other officials claim.
When President Arroyo opened the National
Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) board meeting on February
18, she announced that her government’s Procurement Transparency
Group would meet immediately to look deeply into the country’s
corruption problems.
Antigraft watchdogs
She formed the PTG in 2007 to examine the
then-already controversial $329.48-million ZTE national broadband
network project deal between the Philippines and China.
It was the PTG’s recommendation that made her
scrap the ZTE deal last year.
President Arroyo said the PTG “is tasked to
install antigraft watchdogs in government offices. The group
includes not only government departments like Budget, Justice and
NEDA, but also civil society groups who will keep watch over
government contracts.”
She also announced that she had doubled the
budget for the Office of the Ombudsman. This will enable the
government’s principal antigraft agency to hire more investigators
and prosecutors.
P13-B antigraft fund
She added that her administration has spent P13
billion to fund her campaign against corruption.
The Department of Heath was recently assessed as
the best performing government agency in corruption prevention and
integrity development among 11 government agencies, a study jointly
conducted by the Asian Development Bank, the Development Academy of
the Philippines and the Office of the Ombudsman.
Drive vs. poverty
The administration also claims great
achievements in meeting the anti-poverty and anticorruption aspects
of the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations and
which must be met by 2015.
By improving the economy, which has enjoyed
unprecedented growth throughout the years of the Arroyo presidency,
the administration has caused mass poverty and hunger to decrease
significantly. This has been confirmed by surveys conducted by the
Social Weather Stations.
The government knows a lot more work has to be
done to increase employment and productivity and thereby reduce
poverty especially in the rural areas. Recently, President Arroyo
announced that she was allotting almost P80 billion to pump-prime
the economy.
Education reforms
Although the pronouncements of Education
Secretary Jesli Lapuz have been largely on the Cyber-Education
Project, education officials told The Times the department is also
very active in pushing values education among teachers and
government school pupils.
-- With Angelo Samonte and Katrice Jalbuena
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