PCOO CHIEF HIGHLIGHTS RELEVANCE OF DUTERTE LEGACY TO FILIPINOS

By Jennifer P. Gaitano

To provide a better understanding to Caraganons on the Duterte Legacy, Secretary Martin Andanar of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) elaborated the legacies and how these benefitted the Filipino people.

During his radio interview with station manager Ramil Bangues of RMNdxBC Butuan on Monday, Secretary Andanar said the Duterte Legacy is a national campaign to inform and etch in the minds of the Filipino people the remarkable accomplishments of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s administration. “The Duterte Legacy campaign humanizes the accomplishments of the Duterte administration in different sectors of governance. It looks into how these accomplishments directly impact and affect the Filipinos, especially those in the grassroots,” he said.

Andanar said the Duterte Legacy is a whole-ofnation campaign, not just during the State of the Nation Address (SONA), but also to showcase the accomplishments of the president locally, regionally, nationally. “This is important because if you have a very strong legacy campaign, it will set as the benchmark of our people in terms of the quality of service they must look for in an administration. With the upcoming elections, our voters are more wellinformed and can make better choices in choosing their future leaders,” he said.

When asked about some specific legacies which the president had initiated, Andanar said that with the free education program of the government, more than 1.6 million college students in public universities benefitted from the Free Tuition Act, which was signed into law by President Duterte.

Andanar said that under Peace and Security,

the Filipino people witnessed the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), through the Republic Act No. 11054 or the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), wherein peace and stability in the region can prosper. Under infrastructure development, Andanar said that infra spending rose to around 5-6% relative to the country’s GDP under the Duterte administration to truly usher the “Golden Age of infrastructure.”

“This as we compare it to the 1.6% to GDP from 2001 to 2010 and 3% to GDP from 2011 to 2016,” he said.

“Through the Build, Build, Build Program, we were able to generate 6.5 million jobs from 2016 to 2020. In 2021, we are targeting to generate an additional 1.6 million jobs to contribute to the economic recovery as impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic,” added Sec. Andanar.

Apart from the Mindanao Media Hub, Andanar also announced that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has also recently approved the budget amounting to P200 million for the construction of another state-of- the-art media facility that will boost the capacity of government media in the Visayas.

“We are providing these legacies and achievements through the Duterte Legacy Campaign to provide and give a platform for the public a look into the government’s programs and services, how it can benefit them in a way they can easily understand and identify with. We’re providing a medium as well by featuring the grassroots communities as to how these legacies have benefitted them in their daily lives,” said Sec. Andanar when asked how important to talk about the Duterte Legacy to the Filipino people.

The PCOO chief also said that the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) particularly in Caraga region headed by regional director Abner Caga has intensified its campaign efforts to deliver timely, accurate, and reliable information and updates to the Caraganons. He added that other attached agencies of PCOO are also gearing up their strategies and innovations to cater to the needs of the Filipino people when it comes to information and communications.

“It is only during the administration of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte that we have accomplished numerous goals and aims in the PCOO. The Executive Order No. 2 series of 2016 that created the Freedom of Information (FOI) Program of the Executive Department has been instrumental in undertaking our mandate of promoting transparency and truthful information while countering fake news in all media platforms,” he said.

The PCOO is the lead communications arm of the government and a vehicle of understanding for a well-informed and enlightened citizenry, proud of its heritage and attuned to global realities. PCOO is mandated to serve as the premier arm of the Executive Branch in engaging and involving the citizenry and the mass media in order to enrich the quality of public discourse on all matters of governance and build a national consensus thereon. (JPG/DMR, PIACaraga)