“I look back at our years together and, modesty aside, I believe that we have many things to be proud of.”

This was the statement of Vice President Manuel “Noli” De Castro at the twilight of his career as he called on stakeholders to sustain the gains of the housing sector the last six years.

According to De Castro, who is also the concurrent chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), the present government has put in place reforms in the housing sector which should remain in place in the next administration.

“Alongside the reforms, we focused on strengthening the housing finance system, which is the backbone in the shelter industry,” De Castro said during the Housing Finance Forum in Makati.

He said house financing system should feature fiscal discipline to prevent excesses and where government acts as facilitator instead of regulator.

He said there is no need to worry after the elections as he expressed optimism that the housing sector would continue to grow.

Youth's role in helping curb corruption
The Filipino youth have a significant role in curbing corruption in the government as well as in ensuring accountability and transparency in government projects.

In a forum by the Global Development Learning Network Asia Pacific (GDLN AP) held yesterday at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) in Makati City, social transparency and accountability experts Theary Seng of Cambodia and Mary McNeil of the World Bank Institution (WBI) cited the youth’s significant role in curbing corruption in the Asia Pacific region, including the Philippines.

Theary Seng is a human rights lawyer and an executive committee member of the International Board of the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability (ANSA) – East Asia and the Pacific while McNeil is a senior specialist at the WBI.

“ANSA uses the youth as a stakeholder because they comprise the majority of the population in the region,” Seng said.

Seng underscored the youth’s technological know-how, particularly in using cellular phones and social networking sites, which can help in shaping social accountability.

P20-million grant to support peace project
The Spanish government committed P20-million to the Philippines to support a pilot project dubbed as the “Sorsogon Initiative” where the people in a community implement infrastructure projects as part of government’s effort to eradicate insurgency.

Spanish Ambassador to the Philippines Luis Arias-Romero said Spain is fully committed for the peaceful resolution to the long-drawn armed conflict in the Philippines.

He said the implementation of the project was “a result of hard work in the past few months through frank and open dialogue between OPAPP, the local government academy and the embassy of Spain."

“You can count on Spain,” Romero said at the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) on the “Sorsogon Initiatives” between the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) headed by Secretary Anabelle T. Abaya, the primary agency tasked to coordinate the National Peace Agenda of the Government, and the Local Government Academy (LGA), the training arm of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).