If we give our children a better life now, we give our country a better tomorrow...

Press Releases

• POVERTY IS ISSUE – GWEN PIMENTEL    May 08, 2010
• GWEN PIMENTEL INSISTS ON PARALLEL COUNT    May 06, 2010
• PROBE MERALCO ON RATES – GWEN PIMENTEL    May 05, 2010
• GWEN PIMENTEL APPEALS TO MILITARY    May 02, 2010
• GWEN PIMENTEL CALLS FOR LIVING WAGE FOR WORKERS    May 01, 2010
• GWEN PIMENTEL BATS FOR GREEN TECHNOLOGY    April 30, 2010
• GWEN PIMENTEL WARNS AGAINST GOV’T SPENDING FOR ELECTION PROJECTS    April 29, 2010
• GWEN PIMENTEL GETS PARTY-LIST SUPPORT    April 28, 2010
• GWEN PIMENTEL HITS GMA EO FOR PORK IMPORTS    April 27, 2010
• GWEN PIMENTEL SLAMS PALACE MIDNIGHT APPOINTMENTS    April 23, 2010

POVERTY IS ISSUE – GWEN PIMENTEL

With 47 percent or about 45 million of Filipinos rating themselves poor according to the SWS, the primary issue in the May 10 elections is poverty, according to Nacionalista Party senatorial candidate Gwen Pimentel.

“We Filipinos therefore should vote for the presidential and other candidates who are perceived to be most able and determined to eliminate or greatly reduce poverty,” Gwen Pimentel said.

She declared that Nacionalista Party presidential candidate Manny Villar and the Nacionalista Party are “the best qualified candidate and party that are able to solve the problem of poverty because they are closer to the people, more than 90 percent of whom belong to the middle and lower classes.”

“We understand how it is to be poor, and we therefore are determined to wipe out poverty.  We have the program, the will and the passion to eliminate poverty among the vast majority of our people,” Gwen Pimentel declared.

“Aside from promoting agricultural growth and productivity, we plan to encourage the growth of industries in manufacturing and processing in the urban and rural areas to cater to the local market, thus creating more employment and income for our people,” said Gwen Pimentel.

“We will do this by providing for incentives to Filipino entrepreneurs in agriculture and industry so that we will become more self-sufficient, and generate the income to build schools, hospitals and other infrastructures to move our country forward to the 21^st century.”

Gwen Pimentel bared a report of the Asian Development Bank showing that household poverty rose by 2.5 percentage points to 26.9 percent from 2003 to 2006, and the number of poor people swelled by nearly 4 million people to 27.6 million despite an average domestic economic growth rate of 5.3 percent for the period, it said.

“Because of corruption, incompetence and instability, our poverty today is even greater than it was in 2006 as shown by the SWS surveys,” Gwen Pimentel declared.

“We must stop being the laggard in Asia in economic growth and solving poverty,” Gwen Pimentel stressed.

The ADB report also said the Philippine poverty reduction rate of 0.47 percent per year between 1990 to 2005 was slower than in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, adding that only in the Philippines has the overall number of poor people increased during that period