MANILA, Philippines?Liberal Party (LP) vice presidential candidate Sen. Mar Roxas said Sunday that if he and the LP?s standard-bearer Sen. Benigno ?Noynoy? Aquino III won, they would increase the budget for education to up to 5 to 6 percent of the country?s gross domestic product (GDP).

?If the Arroyo administration had implemented this, P400 billion would already have been given (to education) instead of the P180 billion allocated for 2010,? Roxas said.

Such an amount would be at par with the spending of other countries on education and would help the poor get out of poverty, he said.

A United Nations official recently said the current government spending per capita on education was below even that of ?sub-Saharan African countries.?

Roxas, chair of the Senate education committee, said reforming the education system was going to be his and Aquino?s ?central strategy? to decrease the incidence of poverty in the country and make Filipino students competitive.

?If our leaders were honest, education would always come first. Under an Aquino-Roxas government, we will give priority to making investments for the future of Filipino children,? Roxas said.

?Our program for education will be the same for the entire government. If there?s no corruption, there?s no poverty,? he added.