24 January 2016, 2:53 am – NACIONALISTA Party senatorial bet and Faculty of Arts and
Letters alumna Susan “Toots” Ople on Saturday vowed to
solve the problem of slow Internet services in the country.
“[The internet] is the biggest advantage of the present
generation so we have to concentrate on that as well,” Ople said in a press
conference.
The former labor undersecretary’s main advocacy however is to
provide long and short-term structural reforms for overseas Filipino workers
(OFWs), such as more benefits and protection.
Ople’s platform includes the construction of hospitals for OFWs,
development of assistance programs for human trafficking survivors, and the
establishment of a Cabinet department for migration and development.
More than 10 million Filipinos work or live abroad, sending some
$25 billion in remittances annually.
Ople, who finished Communication Arts in UST in 1985, also vowed
to provide job opportunities for the youth sector by dealing with job
mismatches.
“Hindi malinaw sa economic planning [ng bansa] ang jobs to be
found,” she said. “We have to know how to match applicants with the right
employers,” she said.
The UST alumna, daughter of the late senator Blas Ople, ran for
the Senate in the 2010 elections under the party of former senator Manuel
Villar, but failed to get a seat.
The press conference was organized by BlogWatch, a citizen blog,
in partnership with Aktiboto, a voter-education program spearheaded by the UST
Central Commission on Elections. Bernadette A. Pamintuan and Alhex Adrea M.
Peralta
