PRESS RELEASE
June 28, 2010

No Motherhood Statements Please!
Education, land reform should be in Noy’s inaugural address

“Aquino’s commitment to education and land reform must be present in his eight-minute address to the nation,” This was the statement of Terry Ridon, National Chairperson of the League of Filipino Students, as he urged the incoming president to make a firm commitment for greater subsidies to education at all levels and the immediate redistribution of agricultural land to poor farmers.

Ridon said that Aquino should do away with ‘motherhood statements’ that are common in inaugural speeches of past presidents, insisting that the youth are more concerned with policy directions that Aquino would take, consistent with his promises of change and ‘daang matuwid’.

For student groups like the LFS, a higher budget for education akin to the international standard of 6% of GDP in terms of education spending top their demands to the new administration.

“The new president must clearly prioritize the education of the youth, and he may start by committing an emergency fund to education in his first one hundred days.”

He said that such emergency fund would immediately avert the terrible conditions of facilities and instruction in many schools, such as the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.

On the other hand, Ridon urged President-elect Aquino to act decisively on land reform and ‘betray his class’, something that his mother failed to do when she was president, as the late president failed to fully distribute their own landholding, the Hacienda Luisita, to their sugar workers.

“Noynoy has a clear shot at undoing the shortcomings of her mother in working for genuine agrarian reform. He should commit to the distribution of Luisita in his inaugural address.”

Ridon said that by riding on the popular yearning of the people for change after nine years under Arroyo, Aquino must act swiftly to enact immediately enforceable changes in policy and governance, or else he would lose popular support.

“We will be vigilant, and we will watch you, Mr. President.”