Liberal Party vice-presidential candidate and race frontrunner Senator Mar Roxas today declared that only a clean and honest government can uplift the Filipino people from the dire straits they are currently in.

The Liberal tandem of Senators Noynoy Aquino and Roxas will kick off the people’s campaign today in Tarlac to give tribute to Senator Ninoy and President Cory Aquino, and by reaffirming their commitment to the fight of the people’s heroes for good governance and social justice.

“Kung tapat at tuwid ang pamumuno, tiyak ang asenso ng ordinaryong Pilipino. Ito ang patuloy na ipaglalaban namin ni Noynoy at ng buong Partido Liberal (If government is clean and honest, the people’s development would then be ensured. This is what Noynoy, the Liberal Party and I commit to continue fighting for),” he said.

“Magkakaroon lamang ng saysay ang pangakong sapat na trabaho at pagkain, at abot-kamay na serbisyong pang-edukasyon at pangkalusugan, kung may kaakibat na pagbabago sa pamamahala sa bansa (Any promise of sufficient jobs and food, and robust education and health services, will only bear fruit if there is a parallel effort to reform the government),” he added.

Roxas, the Liberal Party president, said the people’s welfare will be put top and center in the agenda of an Aquino-Roxas government. Thus, education will be the central strategy for investing in the people and for long-term development of the country as a key player in the new global knowledge economy, he said.

The LP president said the potentials and natural talents of the Filipino youth should be nurtured by a competent and world-class education sector. “This could only happen if we clean-up the education sector and institute omnibus education reforms.”

Known as the architect of the Business Process Outsourcing industry in the Philippines, which now provides more than half a million jobs, Roxas said only a clean and honest government could ensure quality and meaningful livelihoods for all.

“Corruption is the main deterrent to investments by both Filipino and foreign businessmen. To create jobs means to eliminate red tape and to level the playing field,” the former Trade secretary said.

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Job creation, he said, should also be focused where poverty is very rampant – in the countryside, where more than 70% of the poor are living. Thus, Roxas said adequate support to the agriculture sector—to make farming viable and to ensure enough food for the people—should be provided.

“We have enough funds to ensure adequate farm inputs, post-harvest facilities and farm-to-market roads. We have seen how these funds do not reach our farmers because of rampant corruption, and because those who conceived grand schemes to steal from our poor farmers are not put in jail,” he stressed.

Roxas said that as the Liberal Party believes that the people are the country’s greatest strength, then adequate and affordable healthcare is therefore a must – and should be freed from political patronage.

“We saw in our fight for quality and affordable medicines how vested interests pull all strings to stonewall the people’s dreams – and how the government were in cahoots with them instead of siding with poor patients,” he stressed.

Roxas stressed that as fish rots from the head, then meaningful change starts from clean and honest leaders supported by the people who are sick and tired of the status quo of corruption and patronage.