Partnerships Against Poverty Summit - Keynote

Editor's Notes

1. (Appropriate greetings)
2. We all live at a time and age that has made obsolete what used to be impossible.
3. And yet. // We still / haven’t solved / poverty.
4. In the last 100 days or so after I assumed office as Vice-President, I sought to meet many of the faces of poverty
5. Our poor work very hard. But inefficiencies, barriers to development
6. So, instead of waiting for them to tell government what they needed, your government went to them. I promised to do this during the inauguration,
7. First, that poverty is the root cause of many Filipino
8. . The small farmers, fisherfolk, and laborers who produce our country’s food are ironically the ones who are hungry and lack proper nutrition.
9. Second, that we need a lot of financial resources to solve poverty, but the Office of the Vice-President does not, by its nature, have the budget to fight this war.
10. Third, and integral to the second point, we need trust among partners to solve poverty
11. Our diversity and difference must never be a barrier to reach out to each other when anyone is in need. The problems we face require building bridges, not walls.
12. Fourth, that the best platform to fulfill our hopes in the fight against poverty is at the local government level,
13. Fifth, for LGUs to properly orchestrate the holistic change processes in their areas, convergence and collaboration
14. Later before lunch, you will be involved in Talakayang Laylayan, or what I call “development speed dating”,
15. we will be launching Angat Buhay: Partnerships Against Poverty.
16. We have chosen our first batch of LGUs very carefully. If you map out the 50 LGUs present here today,
17. I see 312 collaborators in the form of private corporations, aid agencies, CSOs, and sectoral representatives,
18. But this is just the first batch. We will be bringing Angat Buhay to where it is needed and to places
19. As a nation, we cannot be defined by what we are unable to do.