Loren, Bam push for poor’s rights

MANILA — Senators Loren Legarda and Bam Aquino are pushing for the protection of the fundamental rights of the poor.

Legarda refiled Senate Bill (SB) 2515, which directs the government to prioritize investments and anti-poverty programs to empower the poor.

“(The government) shall adopt an area-based, sectoral and focused intervention to poverty alleviation,” she said.

The bill, or “An act providing for a Magna Carta of the Poor,” will “ensure that each citizen will rightfully receive minimum basic needs through partnership between the government and its basic sectors,” said the lady senator.

Legarda’s proposal mandates all government departments to create a National Poverty Reduction Plan “to set the thresholds to be achieved by the government for each of the recognized rights of the poor.”

Aquino, on the other hand, also refiled last year SB 2370, or the “Magna Carta of the Poor Act.”

While the country earned a 7.2 percent growth in gross domestic product in 2013, “(we) still (face) a myriad of challenges,” said Aquino.

“The daunting task for the State is how to capitalize on its outstanding growth, the critically acclaimed reform efforts and the renewed global confidence to make growth inclusive and felt by all of the 100 million Filipinos,” he said.

President Benigno Aquino III has previously vetoed the bills.

Source: Panay News