Gibo Teodoro

GIBO TEODORO

Last December 17, 2009, Defense Secretary Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro, together with his running mate, Edu Manzano visited our school and held an open forum regarding his candidature in the upcoming 2010 presidential elections. This is part of their campus tours that will cover the entire country. He is the first presidential aspirant who visited our school to speak of different issues and concerns about the approaching elections to the youth. Students were able to ask Mr. Teodoro about a wide range of issues like education, corruption, health, overseas employment, etc.

His programs speak about education, infrastructures, economy, social services, and other programs that will be for the good of the citizens. One program that I think will be good for us is his support for the Philippine Education Road map. His proposal is about the students’ loan program rather than scholarships. He said that he wants a revolving student loan program, probably get five billion pesos from the national treasury, and park it in the SSS. Those students who want to study will be given a student and SSS number which should be a GSIS number too, and then will give his/her the loan. Once the student is employed, deduction in his salary will be done. Another program that struck me is the Universal Participative Health Care which deals with contribution of 100-200 pesos every month of the wealthy family to be delivered to health care.

I believe it is a good plan for 2010, especially the Education and the Health care plan. For the Education plan, I realized that students will have an incentive to study hard because they have to repay the loan and still they can service more people. Scholarships are given to those who really deserve it and only to those subjects that the country needs. Also the Universal Participative Health Care is a good one too for me because all citizens are to participate in helping one another. I mean, what’s for a rich person to contribute 100 or 200...