Liberal Party Vice Presidential bet Leni Robredo. File photo
EFFECTIVE governance by the next administration will mean recognizing the successes and failures of the current one led by President Aquino, administration vice presidential candidate Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo said on Saturday.
In a town hall meeting at St. Theresa’s College in Quezon City, Robredo said the Aquino administration had succeeded in implementing anticorruption measures and in bringing vast improvements to the economy.
But she said the administration fell short of taking bold steps in implementing infrastructure projects.
Robredo said that “taking note of where we started, our government became too careful,” referring to the Arroyo administration which was hounded by corruption allegations.
“Because we were too careful, there were so many opportunities that were missed,” she said. “To me, we should be willing to take risks, to invest in things that would really make a difference as far as the entire country is concerned.”
According to analysts, the Aquino administration’s anticorruption platform was among the reasons for its underspending, a result of spending too much time ensuring that contracts would stand legal and public scrutiny.
Robredo said the government could have done more for infrastructure, transportation, communication and agriculture that are the basic needs in the rural communities.
“If I will be very candid about it, I think too much emphasis had been centered on rice self-sufficiency that we didn’t give enough attention to food security,” she said.
Before entering politics in 2013, Robredo, a lawyer, worked with the Bicol chapter of the Ateneo-based Sentro ng Alternatibong Lingap Panligal (Saligan) for two decades.
Saligan lawyers’ clients were mostly rural folk—farmers, fishermen and indigents.
Robredo emphasized the government should not sacrifice rural development and should be bolder in implementing antipoverty programs.
“I say this because for a very long time, government programs had become Manila-centric because the opinion makers are there. But I have been in the rural areas for too long and the situation there is so different from Manila,” she said.
Robredo said the public was complaining too much about the problems besetting the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) and many other issues “but these are not the issues that matter to rural folk.”
The failure to address the concerns of rural communities end up contributing to the problems of Manila because the rural folk migrate to the city thinking the opportunities are only in the country’s capital, she said.
Robredo believed that Naga City’s people empowerment style of governance, begun by her husband, the late Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, could be adopted by the national government.
“When people are made to believe that they are part of government, people will be cooperative and collaborative,” she said.
“I am not saying that government has failed. I think given the limitations, given the point that we were coming from, I think this administration has exceeded so many expectations. But if the question is, ‘Are we satisfied?’ ‘Where we are now?’ Not really. We are still far from (our goals).”