Cabinet vows greater impact in Duterte’s last 3 years

DAVAO CITY – With three more years before President Duterte steps down, members of his Cabinet have vowed to make a greater impact on the lives of Filipinos.

“We all work together in our respective departments and we will come up with something that would have a great impact on the people,” Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said during the pre-State of the Nation Address (SONA) forum held at the SMX Convention Center here in Davao City the other day.

Nograles said the clustering of the different Cabinet departments helped make effective the execution of tasks and plans directed toward the goals of the Duterte administration.

Duterte reorganized the Cabinet cluster system through Executive Order 24, which he signed in 2017.

The EO reorganized the clusters into participatory governance, infrastructure, human development and poverty reduction, and security, justice and peace (SJPC).

Other clusters are the climate change adaptation and mitigation and disaster risk reduction (CCAMDRRC); and economic development.

This reorganization expands the number of Cabinet clusters to six, from former president Benigno Aquino III’s original five clusters.

Meanwhile, a few days before the President delivers his fourth SONA on Monday, CCAMDRRC and SJPC held the pre-SONA forum here led by Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana.

The Wednesday forum was the final installment of the three-part pre-SONA forum, dubbed “Tatak ng Pagbabago 2019,” which aims at discussing the package of policies and programs that the Duterte administration pursued in the past three years.

Aside from giving updates on the government’s key policies, the pre-SONA forum gave a view of the accomplishments of the Duterte administration at midterm.