“I WANT you to become president,” President Duterte once told Sen. Manny Pacquiao.
Why not?
National Artist F. Sionil opined Manny has money for the campaign. According to Sionil, Pacquiao is intelligent and rose from the depths of poverty. The famous writer also said the lawmaker also found faith and religion which give him moral strength and direction.
No Filipino loves this country more than Manny Pacquiao. He professes his pride as a Filipino.
For past presidents, we had the brilliant Ferdinand Marcos. We also had the likes of Fidel Ramos, Joseph ‘ Erap’ Estrada and Gloria Arroyo and Cory’s son Noynoy.
But we never had a true ‘People’s Champ’ like Manny Pacquiao.
He is not from a political family nor from an ivy league school. He’s a true outsider in Philippine political oligarchy, but he may actually be our country’s saving grace to bring us back on the right direction.
Pacquiao is a good man and a very humble guy. With Manny, we may be able to achieve a true team effort to further develop our country. Leadership is not necessarily being the smartest. It’s surrounding yourself with the best and the brightest who can work together in bringing out the best work under the framework and priorities of the team leadership.
Manny is called the “People’s Champ” because he continuously fights for our country against all odds — the very reason for the masses’ admiration for him. Pacquiao has the heart for true public service and can be a unifying factor in a divided country.
He can be the hero to unite and deliver Filipinos to greatness.
Meanwhile, if Manny becomes president, one major task he needs to accomplish is the uneven budget allocation for congressional districts.
There appears to be a “disparity” or the unfair split of allocation towards the infrastructure budget of lawmakers from the lower house. Some districts have oversized budget while others have very little—a matter still to be addressed by the House leadership.
A colleague of Pacquiao in the upper chamber, Sen. Panfilo Lacson cited an urban district in Mindanao with an infrastructure budget of around P15.351 billion, in Albay P7.5 billion, in Benguet P7.9 billion and in Abra P3.75 billion.
“This is just to point out the disparity in the distribution of the budget. Bakit ganun ang disparity? What’s in those districts that would merit those appropriations?” Lacson said.
Lacson admitted he is skeptical if the billions of pesos worth of infrastructure projects will actually push through.
In the Senate review of the proposed P4.5 trillion national budget, Lacson remarked It’s a wonder how a particular engineering district could implement infrastructure projects worth more than P15.350 billion.
Also worried over the disparity in budget allocation is Senate President Tito Sotto. “Usually kasi sa pinagdaanan kong mga budgets, yung mga districts, ‘di masyadong nagkakalayo ang amounts ng funding nila, especially sa DPWH,” he said.
“Bago sa akin ito na mayroong ilang district na saksakan ng lalaki ang amount,” Sotto explained.
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