CATARMAN, Northern Samar — Northern Samar Governor Paul Daza has vowed to improve the quality of life of his constituents by giving full priority to the province’s economic development with the assistance of the national government.

In a recent press conference, he told local media that he intends to do his best to particularly uplift the depressed socio-economic conditions of the people of Northern Samar and clear his province from the list of the Philippines’ top 20 poorest provinces. At least 42 percent of the province’s 549,759 population are said to be currently living in poverty.

Daza said he is optimistic that in the next five years he will attain his goal with the implementation of the current Aquino administration’s Convergence Agro-Enterprises Cluster program launched here recently.

He expressed appreciation for the national government’s giving more attention to Northern Samar’s development, saying that “we are optimistic that after five years we will not be included anymore among the poorest provinces in the country. We used to rank third and seventh in the list; we now number 10 among the poorest. The goal is for us to be out of the top 20 list.”

Daza informed reporters that said Agro-Enterprise Cluster program being implemented in his province by three national government agencies as key players has a five-year timeframe where majority of the budget will be focused more on agricultural development considering that 58 percent of the province’s 350,000 -square kilometer land area of is devoted to agriculture”

The Northern Samar governor said, “The convergence initiative will generate the employment close to 700,000 people in the next five years. We have the local government units, non-government organizations, national government agencies and the business sector here to help us achieve that.”