Mar Roxas. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NINO JESUS ORBETA
On New Year’s Eve, Liberal Party standard-bearer Mar Roxas harked back to his accomplishments as secretary of the interior in 2015, including supervising security for Pope Francis in January and causing a dip in crime in Metro Manila.
But Roxas skipped any mention of the year’s biggest story—the Jan. 25 massacre of 44 elite commandos by Moro rebels in Mamasapano, Maguindanao—a police operation that was kept from Roxas who was in charge of the Philippine National Police.
Instead, he took the brunt of the criticism hurled at President Aquino and assumed control of seeing to the needs of the slain policemen’s families.
In his New Year’s message, Roxas reminded Filipinos about what he considered his greatest contributions in the past year to the “beginning of a more developed and progressive Philippines.”
He also used the occasion to thank the Filipino people for supporting and strengthening the programs of President Aquino, who endorsed his candidacy.
“Serving the nation has always been an honor and a privilege for Mar Roxas,” the Roxas campaign said on Thursday.
“As the fruitful year of 2015 comes to a close, the standard-bearer of ‘daang matuwid’ wishes to extend his gratitude to the Filipino people for supporting and strengthening the programs and projects that led to the beginning of a more developed and progressive Philippines,” it added.
Roxas cited his accomplishments in the Department of the Interior and Local Government, including the purchase of 469 fire trucks and 1,470 patrol jeeps for stations nationwide.
He credited the 60-percent decline in crime in Metro Manila to “Oplan Lambat Sibat,” a crime-fighting operation he led.
As a result, he said, 716 high profile criminals on the most-wanted list were in custody.
He also made significant work on the development of a response system to calamities such as floods and earthquakes through “Oplan Listo,” which shortened the response time of the government in regions severely affected by calamities.
He cited the efforts of the One Safe Future or 1SF program through which some 20,000 informal settler families had been relocated to safe housing communities.
Roxas said he continued the implementation of the Bottom-up Budgeting Program that gave local government units the power to determine which projects to fund and implement.
“For 2015, 14,453 projects chosen by the people were given the green light to be funded through this system,” he said.