Alagang Angara

Reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara said the Philippine National Police should make it a priority to protect government critics, including the Catholic priests who came forward to reveal that they had been receiving death threats after criticizing President Duterte’s war on drugs.

“If anyone should be protected, it should be the critics of the government. This is to show that we are a democracy and we value freedom of speech and expression,” Angara said in an interview with CNN Philippines.

Government should roll out an “El Niño action plan” in food-growing areas in the country before the drought caused by the weather phenomenon unleashes its full brunt on farmers who are also grappling with low prices of rice and coconut. 

LUCENA CITY—Reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara said the government should pay teachers more if it wants to improve the quality of education in Philippine public schools.

“Quality education begins with quality teachers. And to have good quality teachers in our public schools we need to pay them well,” Angara said, as he reiterated his appeal to the government to give teachers a reasonable pay increase. 

Aside from bigger and wider coverage of social pension, the country’s elderly population must be given employment opportunities to be productive even in their old age and keep them away from poverty, according to reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara.

Angara, a champion of the rights and welfare of senior citizens in the Senate, said many elderly people belonging to the age group 60 to 70 are still physically capable and are prepared to work and earn a living.

Reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara said the construction of the country’s first subway line and other key mass transit projects under the government’s centerpiece program “Build, Build, Build” should help restore public confidence in the local rail transit system, which has been under fire due to its poor and unreliable service.

It’s never too late to earn a college degree.

This was the advice of reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara to over 360,000 unemployed university dropouts, as well as high school graduates but did not proceed to college, as he urged them to return to school and take advantage of the government’s free tertiary education.

Senator Sonny Angara said the government’s conditional cash transfer (CCT) program called Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) ought to be institutionalized to give millions of poor Filipinos a better chance of escaping poverty.

Reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara is calling on state institutions and the private sector to hire more qualified persons with disability (PWDs) amid continued disparities in their employment situation.

Angara reminded that Republic Act 10524 or An Act Expanding the Positions Reserved for PWDs requires government offices to reserve at least one percent of their total positions to PWDs. Under the law, corporations with more than 100 employees are encouraged to do the same.

Reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara thanked President Rodrigo Duterte for signing Republic Act 11215 or the National Integrated Cancer Control Act, saying this will boost government efforts to combat cancer and increase the fighting chance of patients to overcome the disease.

President Duterte signed on February 14, 2019 the law that will provide the framework for an integrated and comprehensive approach to health development, family-centered cancer control policies and programs, as well as interventions at all levels of the existing health care delivery system.

Senator Sonny Angara has expressed alarm over the lack of professionals specializing in the care of the elderly in the Philippines, which puts to question the country’s ability to meet the healthcare needs of its adult population.