TACLOBAN CITY -- The Hugpong ng Pagbabago headed by Presidential daughter and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte has joined forces with Tingog Sinirangan (Tingog) partylist and the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD) for the May 2019 mid-term elections.
The formal signing of alliance agreement is set on Wednesday at Tacloban City Convention Center to be attended by Mayor Sara, other Hugpong ng Pagbabago-supported senatorial candidates, and Tingog nominees along with the party’s Chairman Emeritus former Leyte First District Representative and Lakas-CMD President Ferdinand Martin Romualdez.
Over 5, 000 guests composed mostly of local chief executives and sectoral organizations around Eastern Visayas are expected to witness the signing of the alliance agreement.
“We will be ignored no more. We will be alone no more. We will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with partners such as Hugpong ng Pagbabago who share our cause. We will stand confident knowing we have a President who himself is a champion of regional governance,” said Leyte 1st district Rep. Yedda Marie Romualdez, the first nominee of Tingog.
“Our region’s population of four million comprises four percent of our country’s population. But we receive a little more than one percent of the national budget. We must wait no longer and ask others to speak for us. We need to find our voice,” she added.
Philip Jude Acidre, the second nominee of Tingog, said that “the vision of empowering the countryside is what binds together Tingog Sinirangan and Hugpong ng Pagbabago.”
According to Acidre, the people of Eastern Visayas can no longer remain as voiceless spectators while national policies are crafted and implemented.
“For every man, woman or child – the opportunities that will make real their dreams for a better life will finally be well within their reach – quality education, affordable healthcare, and sustainable livelihoods. Standing side by side, Tingog and Hugpong are committed to see that happen – in a collective mandate of ‘thinking national, but acting regional,’” Acidre said.
“We are happy to know that in this fight we do not stand alone. We stand with friends who have achieved what we yet aspire, with allies who share our values and dreams. We are thankful for this partnership with Hugpong ng Pagbabago for paving the way for this leadership towards change,” he added.
Meanwhile, Romualdez thanked the people of the First District of Leyte for electing her to Congress, this after she accepted the nomination as partylist nominee of Tingog.
In less than two years, the lady solon was instrumental in the successful passage of the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, which provides for free college education in all state colleges and universities and the Ease of Doing Business Act, which intends to help the budding small and medium entrepreneurs.
“We passed on third reading the Alternative Learning System Bill, which aims to strengthen the alternative learning system, the Expanded Maternity Leave Bill, which enables new mothers to care for their newborn for the first hundred days and recently, the Disaster Resilience Bill, which provides for the creation of the Department of Disaster Resilience as the country’s principal agency responsible for preparing and responding to natural disasters and climate change,” she said.
The desire to be of help to an even wider community pushed her to accept the partylist nomination, Romualdez said.
“At the heart of my first term in Congress is my strong advocacy for a government that cares and listens – one that is committed to ensure a better quality of life through a wider access to quality education, affordable and available healthcare services and sustainable livelihood opportunities. This we achieved through the many medical programs, livelihood projects and college scholarships implemented in the first district of Leyte,” Romualdez said.
She hoped that “the modest achievements we have realized here in the First District of Leyte, could be true to every part of Samar, Eastern Samar, Northern Samar, Leyte, Southern Leyte, and Biliran.”
Tingog, through a resolution promulgated on August 19, 2015, was officially accredited by the Commission on Elections as a party-list organization qualified to run under the party-list elections beginning with the May 9, 2016 national and local Elections.
The other three nominees of Tingog are Jamie Go, Alexis Yu, and Jenifer Padual.
Tingog was first founded on October 2, 2012 as Tingog Leytehon, a provincial political party based in Leyte. (PNA)
