PRESIDENT NOYNOY leaves for the United States soon to attend the
United Nations global summit on the Millennium Development Goals
or MDGs, eight measurable and time-bound targets that, if met
and followed through, would mean a significant decline in
poverty around the world, both in terms of the number of poor
people and the hardships they have to endure. The good news is
that the majority of the world?s governments and leaders signed
the Millennium Declaration that enshrines the MDGs, and
committed their governments to the attainment of the MDGs by
2015. The bad news, however, is that many of these signatory
states will most probably not meet their own commitments, the
Philippines included. While the prospect of a passing grade in
meeting the MDGs is bad overall for the Philippines, it is
particularly bad with regard to meeting MDGs 4 and 5. This
early, experts predict that we will not be able to meet these
two goals, and that it will take an extraordinary amount of
leadership, political will, budget support