Arroyo vows to keep promises to Payatas kids

Cross my heart.

President Arroyo vowed yesterday that the promises she made to three impoverished youngsters at her State of the Nation Address (SONA) will not go the way of balloons.

"I would comply with any promises I make... That’s a promise which we’re keeping," the President vowed in a TV talk show aired after her speech last Monday.

The three youngsters, whom she called to center stage in the midst of her SONA, are Jomar Pabalan, Jason Vann Banogan, both 10, and Erwin Dolera, eight. The three, who reportedly wrote down their deepest needs on a paper boat which they let float on the Pasig River toward Malacañang, received a standing ovation when they were called onstage by Mrs. Arroyo.

"The requests of these children from Payatas were very clear, very simple: jobs, education, their own homes and let us add, food on each table. These are what the masses need," President Arroyo said in her SONA.

"For their particular families, we will provide. The child (Erwin) who wants land, his family will get it. The child (Jomar) who wants a job for his father, his family will get it. The child (Jason) who wants to have education until college, he will get it," the President vowed.

Mrs. Arroyo had to underscore her commitment to her promises in the wake of criticism from various sectors, especially opposition leaders, that the three boys were simply used as "mascots" to make her speech more dramatic. They said the three boys might just end up like "Mang Pandoy" whom then President Fidel Ramos used as a symbol of his administration’s fight against poverty in the early ’90s.

Mang Pandoy, despite government aid, has remained destitute.

"But what I am saying is that we cannot give all they were requesting. We can give them these things because there were only three of them but for all of the youths similarly situated, we really need to undertake the reforms that we are doing now," she said.

But President Arroyo confirmed that the paper boats of the three young boys did not actually reach Malacañang as intended but their plight reached her through Presidential Spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao.

The President said Tiglao read a news item about the three boys, originally six, who sent their "dream boats" down the Pasig River.

Mrs. Arroyo said these boys from the Payatas area, site of Metro Manila’s biggest dumpsite, are now under the care of a non-government organization in Quezon City. At least two of them lost their families during an avalanche in the dumpsite that occurred after heavy rains a year ago.

"Because I want plain talk and common sense, I said, we will use the case of the three boys and make them symbols of the needs of the masses. So I said, I will invite the three children to be my guest at the SONA, and that’s what happened," she said.

Mrs. Arroyo, an economist, said her focus on the three boys underscores her resolve to "fight poverty within a decade."

She cited her administration’s urban land reform and agrarian reform programs which she said have specific targets and were time bound so that she could check on the progress of their implementation.

To set an example, the President said her husband Jose Miguel Arroyo has given up the family’s ownership of vast tracts of land for the land reform program.

"I don’t want to be pa bida (like a hero) and everything, I mean, it’s just a fact that we are doing it," she said.

The President noted that she faces a lot of domestic problems which are influenced by the downtrend in the world economy.

"Since my becoming President, the international community changed. In fact, when the downtrend started to happen, I told myself, ‘God, why did it happen in my watch’? Because they expect a miracle of a recovery in the economy. But then, I got His answer. ‘That’s why I put you there’."