IT HAS disadvantages, but a president coming from Davao City means a lot of opportunities.
Though shaken by opposition noise, President Rodrigo Duterte’s kind of leadership, mostly known to Dabawenyos, has been realizing and fulfilling political and social promises, a dream that is almost impossible in the past administrations.
Nearly just nine months in the office, President Duterte has made reforms and changes in the country, the way how he set flight Davao City to the skies, where he served over two decades as mayor.
Here’s the top of the list “changes” President Duterte has made and been stirring in the Palace:
SSS pension hike
Malacañang signed last February 22, a memorandum giving a green light for the release of the P1,000 increase in the monthly pension of Social Security System (SSS) members.
And just last March 3, SSS pensioners started receiving the additional benefit. Pensioners receive P3,000 this March which covers months of January and February. However, the distribution will be divided into three tranches: on March 3, March 10 and March 17.
Starting April, the P1,000 increase will be incorporated into the monthly pension.
911 launch nationwide
Davao City’s emergency response hotline 911 has been launched nationwide by the Philippine National Police in August 2016.
The hotline, like what it has been doing in Davao, may provide services like ambulance assistance, response on vehicular accidents, drag racing, drinking in public places, harassments, illegal drug pushing and riots, among others.
The Duterte administration is still working on enabling the hotline free of charge.
Agriculture
The Department of Agriculture (DA) led by President Duterte and Secretary Manny Piñol last March 7 rolled out the national color-coded agriculture guide map it developed under the Adaptation and Mitigation Initiative in Agriculture to help farmers decide what to plant in their areas.
Piñol said the color-coded guide map would serve as the “backbone” of the DA’s program for increasing farm productivity.
Around P5.5 billion worth of infrastructure subprojects are pipelined for Mindanao under DA’s Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) aimed at improving agricultural productivity in the countryside.
According to PRDP’s February 2017 report, farm-to-market roads (FMR) make up the bulk of the pipelined subprojects with a total of 46 subprojects amounting to P4.49 billion.
These subprojects are awaiting endorsement of the issuance of no objection letter, which signals approval, while others are awaiting approval of the Regional Project Advisory Board, or subprojects undergoing validation.
Undergoing implementation are 62 FMR subprojects while 37 are under various stages of procurement.
Local government units have seen the importance of FMR projects in enhancing the productivity of their commodities and improving the connectivity of their areas, which is why he said local government units have strongly lobbied for more road concreting projects.
Economic gains
Philippines ranking in the Economic Freedom Index 2017 rose by 12 spots from 70th to 58th spot out of 180 countries, buoyed by a 2.5-point increase in its overall score to 65.6.
This makes the country to the top-third of the ranking, National Competitiveness Council said “this is the sixth consecutive time the country has upgraded its ranking since 2011.”
The group cited gains in “fiscal policy, government spending, and monetary stability” in raising the country’s score. Across the region, the Philippines placed 14th and is classified as “moderately free.”
The Duterte administration, amid accomplishments, still has a long way to overcome the hurdle and fulfill the President’s campaign promise, bring change and make the Philippines a more livable, safer and sustainable home for Filipinos.
According to the latest National Economic and Development Authority data, the Philippine economy expanded by 6.6 percent in the last quarter, bringing the average full-year gross domestic product growth rate for 2016 to 6.8 percent.
This is along the high end of the government's growth target of 6.0 to 7.0 percent for 2016 and the fastest rate in Asia with China growing by only 6.7 percent and Vietnam at 6.2 percent.