Malaysian Defense Minister calls on President
Aquino
Malaysian Defense Minister Dato Seri Hishammuddin
Tun Hussein made a courtesy call on President Benigno S. Aquino III in
Malacañang Palace on Wednesday.
Minister Hishammuddin was accompanied by Malaysian
Ambassador to the Philippines Dato' Mohd Zamri bin Mohd Kassim, Deputy
Secretary General for Policy Suriani binti Ahmad, Director General for
Intelligence Lt. Gen. Datuk Abdul Hadi bin Hj Hussin, and Malaysian Army Field
Commander Lt. Gen. Dato' Sri Zulkiple bin Hj Kassim.
Present on the Philippines’ side were Department
of National Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, National Security Council
Secretary Cesar Garcia, Jr., Department of Foreign Affairs Undersecretary
Lacanlale Linglingay, and Department of National Defense Undersecretary Pio
Lorenzo Batino.
Minister Hishammuddin arrived on Tuesday on board
Malaysian Airlines 802. He was welcomed at the Ninoy Aquino International
Airport by Ambassador Mohd Zamri and Defense Attaché to the Philippines Col.
Hamzah Ali.
After his courtesy call on President Aquino, the
Malaysian defense minister is scheduled to fly to Cotabato to meet with the
Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and Moro Islamic Liberation
Front (MILF) peace panels, as well as the Malaysian contingent of the
International Monitoring Team.
The Malaysian defense minister and his delegation,
which also included Special Officer to the Minister Faris Hussein Dato' Seri
Hishammudin, Military Advisor Col. Arman Rumaizi bin Hj Ahmad, Policy and
Strategic Planning Division Director Sahipulhijaiman bin Sulaiman, Private
Secretary to the Minister Idamoerni Zakaria, Special Officer Nur Diyanah binti
Abdul Rahiman, Special Officer to the Minister Yaqin bin Mohamad Khan,
Political Secretary Onn Hafiz bin Datuk Ghazi, Personal Security Officer to the
Minister SM Azhari bin Md Supian and Minister of Defense staff Cpl. Abdul Nazir
bin Assan, will return to Malaysia at 5 p.m. on Wednesday. PND (jm)
Government determined to reduce poverty through
various programs
The Palace on Wednesday reiterated the
government’s determination to reduce poverty through various programs.
Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said the
government “continues and will continue to fight poverty and evidence of that
is our poverty alleviation intervention programs.”
“Every economist knows that the fight against
poverty is a sustained fight that requires sustained intervention and it takes
decades,” Secretary Lacierda said, commenting on the latest IBON Foundation
survey showing that a majority of Filipinos see themselves as poor.
The IBON survey, conducted from January 19 to 30
among 1,501 respondents across various sectors in 16 regions, also revealed
that many Filipinos had difficulty in meeting their basic expenses in the past
three months.
According to the survey posted on the IBON
website, 7 out of 10 Filipinos rated themselves as poor. Asked what they can
say about their situation today, 65 percent of the respondents said they
consider their families as poor, while 30 percent said otherwise.
Majority of the respondents also believe that
their livelihood has not improved compared to a year ago, with 59 percent
saying their livelihood remains the same and 21 percent answering that their
livelihood became worse.
Asked how their family met household expenses in
the past three months, 59 percent said they had difficulty in paying for
electricity while only 29 percent said they did not have any difficulty.
Of the 1,501 respondents, 53.6 percent said they
had difficulty in buying enough food. As for buying medicines or paying for
medical treatment, 50.8 percent said they had difficulty.
Many Filipinos also said they had difficulty
paying for their children’s schooling (38.6 percent), for transportation (41
percent), and for water (38.9 percent).
The IBON Foundation, an independent development
institution established in 1978, provides research, education, publications,
information work, and advocacy support on socioeconomic issues.
The government’s primary program in assisting the
poor is the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, also known as the Conditional
Cash Transfer program under the Department of Social Welfare and Development
(DSWD). With a budget of P62.3 billion, the program provides conditional cash
grants to extremely poor households to help reduce poverty for 4.3 million
families.
The DSWD implements other programs to address social
protection.
One is the KALAHI-CIDSS National Community-Driven
Development Project, which seeks to empower communities in accessing services
and participating in local planning, budgeting and implementation. This program
aims to support 6,735 community projects that cater to 1.5 million poor
households.
Another is the Sustainable Livelihood Program,
which covers families who graduate from the CCT program. This program aims to
support 265,175 family beneficiaries with micro-enterprise developments and
113,647 households under the employment facilitation through capacity
development.
Social pensions for indigent senior citizens
allocate a monthly social pension of P500 to 939,609 indigent senior citizens,
aged 65 years and above.
The Supplemental Feeding Program, which is part of
the government’s Early Childhood Care and Development program, is a food
supplementation program that will give hot meals to children during
snack/mealtime five days a week for 120 days.
The government has also implemented the National
Household Targeting System, an information management system that identifies
who and where the poor are, besides ranking and classifying them. Updated every
four years, it has already identified 5.2 million poor households entitled to
social protection as of 2011. PND (jm)
