GREATER REPRESENTATION and better articulation of the needs and aspirations of the first district constituency in the august halls of Congress.
No promise but a vow to Joseller “Yeng” Guiao, outgoing Pampanga vice governor and incoming – if MVP, RQP and LGP would have their wish – congressman, is to give the strong voice to that particular seat in the House long laughed at as the chair of the comite de silencio.
A strong voice, and how!
Crafting the Clark Development Authority (CDA) – at this early – to exploit the full potential of the Freeport as an engine of national development.
Freed from the strings of some other government agencies like the Office of the President and the Bases Conversion Development Authority, the CDA with its own charter can, well, charter its own course, directly connecting to investment houses, corporate entities even on a global scale.
Safety nets and the security of tenure of current workers not the least unconsidered, the security of management against both political maneuverings and presidential whim warranted by a fixed term of office.
Clark International Airport (CIA) as operational twin of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
Again at this early, Guiao serves notice of the groundwork for the speed train between Clark and Metro Manila – MVP all gung-ho – with its alignment on the eastern side of the North Luzon Expressway. (Guiao, in effect, reinforcing the long-standing advocacy of Pert Cruz’s Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement on the CIA.)
Savings there on the right-of-way and its attendant social engineering costs, the NLEx being part of MVP’s corporate domain. Thus, too only MVP can do.
Is it, or is it not? The Pampanga Agricultural College as a state university may have passed the House but not the Senate. So it seems.
Whatever, a Congressman Guiao will take that cause to that definitive end.
Only Guiao, in his time at the House, can do it, said the erudite Ram Mercado, seeing some conflicts of interest – family, more than purely vested – in the former congressmen with their names associated to local private schools.
Sports, but naturally, takes a number in Guiao’s legislative agenda. Or he is winning, albeit mercurial, PBA coach for nothing.
A long cherished dream – articulated from time to time during his vice governorship – can come to full realization through the House – the establishment of a sports complex within the grounds of Clark – possibly where the ancient Rizal Memorial stadium in Manila can even transfer.
And then some in local government administration – the provision of some retirement benefits for elected barangay officials – the kapitan and the kagawads.
To the president, vice-president, senators congressmen down to governors, vice governors, board members, mayors, vice mayors, councillors, retirement benefits accrue. Why not to the lowliest in the hierarchy of elective government? They who are the frontliners, who do the actual groundwork of governance?
A P10,000 sum for every year of service to the barangay chair and maybe P5,000 to the kagawad may not be much but it would go a long way in keeping body and soul together.
A well-defined, people-purposed, economic driven legislative agenda Guiao has crafted there. And – he says – only he can translate to enabling laws for its actualization.
Francis “Blueboy” Nepomuceno can’t?
He was there – all three terms – with bridges as his sole, even unfit, claim to fame. When in fact the bridges where conceived, designed and built by or through the Department of Public Works and Highways not by the first district congressional office the least. So Guiao said, as passionate in his statement there as in the basketball court.
And quietly went that room of sated columnists Tuesday evening at Fortune.
