Alagang Angara

Reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara said education is a powerful tool to make the youth enablers of transformation and turn the country into an economic powerhouse where jobs abound and social services are accessible to all.

Data from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as of 2018 showed that the Philippines has the third youngest people among the 700 million youth in the Asia Pacific region, of which about 30 percent are below 15 years old. The median age in the country is 26.

Reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara said the agriculture sector should look for creative ways to engage the youth in farming to ensure that there would be enough farmers to feed the country’s ever-growing population.

“Youth engagement in agriculture is vital to ensuring that the Philippines will not have a scarcity of future food producers,” said Angara, who is scheduled today to campaign in Cagayan, one of the country’s top rice and corn producing provinces. 

Reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara said the government should pay serious attention to developing agriculture and infrastructure in the provinces if it wants to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, which victims are mostly the rural poor.

The lawmaker from Aurora noted that majority of poor and undernourished people live in rural areas, where small-scale farming forms the backbone of their local economy.

Reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara said the manufacturing industry needs a serious makeover if the country wants to recreate “Made in the Philippines” and attract global attention for fresh investments and market. 

Increasing the social pension of indigent senior citizens will be a top priority of Senator Sonny Angara if he is reelected to Senate for another six-year term.

Angara, one of the authors of Republic Act 9994 or the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010, said the social pension provided for under the law must be doubled from the current P500 to P1,000 per month, and its coverage should be expanded to include those without any form of pension.

Renaming Compostela Valley to Davao de Oro is “happening very soon,” according to reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara.

“It’s just a matter of time before Davao de Oro becomes a reality,” said Angara, whose political campaign on Wednesday will take him to Compostela Valley—the only province in Davao Region which does not have Davao in its name just yet.

Davao region is composed of five provinces—Compostela Valley, Davao del Norte, Davao Oriental, Davao del Sur and Davao Occidental.

Reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara is appealing to small-scale miners to help build the country’s foreign exchange buffer by selling their gold haul directly to the government instead of the black market.

Angara said that small-scale miners could soon avail of tax exemptions if they sell their gold to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) with the impending enactment of the so-called “Gold Bill,” which he authored and sponsored as chair of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means.

Reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara urged the government to guarantee the safety and security of all Filipinos in Libya amid escalating military tensions there, as he appealed to workers in the North African country to heed the Department of Foreign Affairs’ (DFA) call for their voluntary repatriation to the Philippines.

Now that the bill granting the 20-percent student fare discount is on President Duterte’s desk for his signature, reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara believes it will become a law in time for the return of students from the provinces for the school opening in June.

Now that public education is free from kindergarten to college, reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara urged students to take their studies seriously and work toward becoming productive citizens.

“As students, your responsibility is to study hard because that’s your passport to employment and good life,” Angara said, as the academic year came to an end. “Education is a great socioeconomic equalizer and a stepping stone to something higher and brighter.”