Yes it is election time once more. And yes, this blog is part of my effort to reach out.
Ours is very much a wired world now, even if many still do not have access to these information technologies.
With this blog, at the very least, the Netizens out there — including you, my dear reader — will have a way to “directly” discuss with me or, at least, have access to my “thoughts,” as it were.
I enjoin you to share your thoughts here as i freely share mine.
This shoud be a learning experience for both of us.
Blogging is learning, i have realized. Blogging is education.
With that said, let me now share once more on my key advocacy — education — and particularly underscore what I have done thus far about it.
Allow me first to wax proud about my track record as Legislator. At the Lower House, I authored, and co-authored about 280 bills (79 were enacted into laws) and proposed 101 local and national resolutions (20 were adopted). I was Assistant Majority Floor Leader twice: first during the 8th Congress in 1987 and the second, during the 10th Congress in 1995. In fact, I have the distinction to be recognized as the first woman Assistant Majority Floor Leader in the history of the Lower House.
At the Senate, I filed 197 Senate Bills (authored and co-authored) and resolutions, related to education, youth, women, family relations, health, local governments, trade and commerce, foreign relations, agriculture, agrarian reform, justice, public works, human rights, cooperatives, labor, mass media, electoral reforms, government service, environment, rural development, finance, public order and illegal drugs, and many other concerns.
In February 1999 I filed a senate bill that was enacted into law in December 2000 as Republic Act No. 8980 which is “An Act Promulgating A Comprehensive Policy and National System for Early Childhood Care and Development (ESSD), Providing Funds Therefore and For Other Purposes.” It provides educational aid to more than six million children below 6 years old.
Also known as the “Early Years Act,” R.A.8980 institutionalizes a grand alliance among the government’s social development agencies which are the DepED, the DSWD, the DOH, the DILG and the Council for the Welfare of Children (CWC) as well as the national and local providers of ECCD services.
Another law that I worked on is Republic Act 6972, the Act establishing a Day Care Center in every barangay which requires the establishment of Montessori-type facilities in every village in the country.
I would say that my main contribution to helping DepED achieve the goals of quality basic education is to sponsor in the Year 2000 a senate bill which became a law on August 21, 2001 — R.A. 9155 or the Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001. This very significant legislation in fact lapsed into law without the signature of the President.
R.A. 9155 promulgated a principle of shared governance which defined the framework by which authority, responsibility and accountability (or AURA) for achieving higher learning outcomes are now shared by the central office, the regional offices, the schools divisions and the schools. Finally school heads are empowered by law to become the school’s chief executive officer. The Governance of Basic Education Act provides the legal basis for most education initiatives today including the transfer of resources to all public elementary and secondary schools. The Schools First Initiative of DepEd is anchored on the principles promulgated by R.A. 9155.
To make the education sector up to date with developments in technology, I co-sponsored the Electronic Commerce Act in recognition of the information and communications technology in nation building.
Moreover, making education more accessible to the poor has been one of my top priorities. To deal with the problem, I co-authored the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE). Enacted in 1989, the law has helped provide tuition fee subsidies to 700,000 needy students in private schools.
I also co-authored the law institutionalizing the National Science and Technology Scholarship Program which helped send 9,000 students to college.
I was also the main sponsor of RA 9036 or the Philippine Science High School System Law which strengthened the administration of the only state-run science high school in the country today.
I have sponsored many other legislative and special projects on education and other concerns. In all these efforts, one thing remains to inspire me — the youth and the future of this nation.
As I have often said, I feel I must do my utmost to help take care of the Filipino child because it is the child who will be taking care of the future of this land.
Some have asked me, have you not been in the Senate, why didn’t you pass all those proposals before? Why do you keep on harping about education?
Building a nation takes time. One cannot reform a country overnight. And education is a perennial concern.
Obviously, we have much to do still. As a case in point, I have crafted a law that should be providing free pre-school education to all children. But where are we in that great effort to make education accessible to all? A great challenge remains.
I do not think that I can overemphasize the key role that education plays in the development of this nation and the nurturing of the Filipino youth.
And thus i have to continue my political journey.
I can only pray that you be with me in this arduous trek.
