secgen acceptance speech priorities and challenges for the cdp

7/31/2019 SecGen Acceptance Speech Priorities and Challenges for the CDP

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Priorities and challenges for the CDP in the next three months

Acceptance Speech of the Newly Elected Secretary General, Lorelyn T. Dumaug

September 29, 2012, Kalayaan College, Quezon City

Ladies and gentlemen, my party mates, guests and visitors of this august body,

good afternoon, magandang hapon po sa inyong lahat!

First and foremost, I would like to thank all of you for having elected me as our

partys new Secretary General, for the confidence and nomination of our party

chairman Lito Lorenzana and for the confidence of our new party president, the

honorable congressman of the 2nd

District of Cagayan de Oro City, Atty. Rufus

Rodriguez.

With humility, honor and privilege for being given the chance to serve the

Centrist Democratic Party (CDP) of the Philippines at the instance of its being both

a de jure and de facto, a fully accredited national political party, I accept this

enormous task and responsibility in the name of service to our country and to

God.

It was in February 2010 when by chance I was invited; rather got myself invited to

a Centrist Democratic Movement (CDM) Conference in Mallberry Suite, Cagayande Oro City. It was a gathering of young people in Northern Mindanao with highly

inspiring speakers who seemed to throw at us certain sense of taking

responsibility in building this nation by making our democracy truly create better

socio-economic programs anchored on the core value of human dignity, with

principles on subsidiarity and social market economy. That then became the

beginning of being invited to various national gatherings, meeting young people

across the nation, who shares similar passion, patriotism and commitments

despite our being busy in our respective jobs on a personal and careerdimensions.

When the leadership of the CDM National Council decided to apply for political

party in January 2012 to participate in the 2013 elections, I was already staying in

Cagayan de Oro City and thus a registered voter in the 1st

district of Cagayan de


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Oro, became the deputy chairperson and was elected in the regions 3rd

Regional

Assembly held in Misamis Oriental as the Regional Political Communications

Officer. I helped in recruiting members in other districts during the early part of

our compliance with the COMELECs requirements, even reaching hinterland

barangays in Misamis Oriental and Misamis Occidental. And last July 2012, I was

privileged to represent the CDP and Philippines to attend KAS Young Politician

(KASYP)s Asian Youth Forum in Bangkok, Thailand.

Now that you have known the brief background of my commitment and

engagement in this new political party, I ask all of your supports. A strong district

and/or region make strong national CDP at the national level. And for that

matter, I anticipate major priorities and challenges of the CDP in the next three

months, which includes but not limited to the following:

1. Strengthening the Internal Organization .What we mean by this is tostrengthen our District membership expansion and the strict adherence to

internal democracy. In my almost 3 years of experience in building our

party in Northern Mindanao, I have learned that the backbone of our party

is primarily on how we increase our members in our respective Districts and

in balancing our membership recruitment on quality and quantity. To

actualize our partys principle on internal democracy is essential inmanaging our party from the District up to the National Council, in deciding

for our partys political platform and other issues and in sending our

delegates to various national gatherings through our democratic

proportional representation. We have to go back to our District for the fight

is there. The strict compliance to internal democracy will ensure our

survival as this is the backbone of our party, to increase our membership so

that we have the number of votes to put to political power the best leaders

of our party. Comrades, when we talked about strengthening our internalorganization, the first thing that should come into our mind should be the

internal democracy, this particular principle that makes us different from

other political party.


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2. Introducing and implementing strict financial management .[As Sir Litoonce said that there are no free riders in our party. When we religiously

pay our annual dues and remit them on time to the National coffers, we are

proving to the entire nation that our party is independent from the

benevolence and generosity of one patron or rich person. We all know that

we have a dismal financial condition at present and we can improve this if

we will go back to our own district, expand the membership and inculcate

the value of self-reliance so that our party will be forever free from political

patrons. For us to remain ideologically free and democratic we must pay

our dues. As newly elected officers of the national secretariat and as

members of this national council, it is essential that we must provide a

mechanism that will improve the financial and fiscal management of the

party that will ensure accountability, transparency and the representation

of the core dues paying members into our partys internal democracy.

3. Extending the Core Membership Base . We are a membership basedpolitical party and the decisions of the party especially in selecting our

candidates are made not by the few but by all the members of the party

through our proportional representation from the District, to the Region

and up to the National. And this can be truly realized if all of us will improve

our mechanisms in recruiting our core members, to ensure a higher

retention and that their vote and their decision shall be counted from the

bottom to the top level of our party. We must not discriminate we must

open our party to anyone but grounded on our required BOS.

4. Develop and implement a general funding strategyIn an institutionalizedpolitical party, the increase and the expansion of the sources of financial

support are viewed that the party have created a greater public value. If

we believe that we will be successful in articulating to the public our values,principles and platform of government, we must develop a strategy to

transform their support into votes so that our party leaders and candidates

will be put to political power and to transform it for funding support to

sustain our partys political platform and activities. We must get the

support of the majority of the young professionals, the middle class and the


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small and medium businessmen and for them to be actively involved in our

party as dues paying members or as financial donors. We can only do this if

our party is relevant to their aspirations and dreams for this country which

they cannot see in other political groups. Our party should be open to this

sector and let us formulate mechanisms and create bodies that will ensure

their massive entry into our party.

5. Understanding the CDP General Platform of Government . Aside from ourvalue and principle, we must imbue to our members and to the public that

we are not a personality based party, that we are a platform orientated

political party. Yes we will campaign for some personalities in our party but

grounded on our platform of government on how we will run the

government once we will get hold of the political power. Our platform ofgovernment deliberated and approved by all dues paying members starting

from the district up to the national level so that all the dues paying

members of the party, the important stakeholder of our party, will be

attached closely to such and for them to campaign for it and to remain in

the party. A platform of government that is unique and identifiable only to

CDP. Being a platform orientated political party, we must know how to

articulate all of this in public and must have that value of accountability,

that we are accountable to the public of the platform that we presented to

them.

6. Formulating the Local Platforms of Government .When we nominated ourlocal candidates in our District Conventions in Region 10, we asked our

members who are going to run for elective position of their platform of

governments. We give an ample time to our other dues paying members to

question their platform and to recommend additional ones. In our region

we created a special committee that will draft our local platforms aligned toour national platform of government. If our fight is in the local especially in

our District, we must have our own local platforms so that we will be

relevant to the voters and to our constituency but still grounded on our

core value and principles.


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7. Forming the Sectoral Organizations. Aside from increasing ourmembership, we organize various sectoral organizations like the labor, the

youth, the farmers, the women, probably the senior citizens, the

businessmen etc. We must align our partys core values and principles to

the issues that are being advocated by these sectors. We must build and

continue having a parallel works with these sectoral groups so that our

aims of creating a greater public value to what we are doing will be realized

and this kind of strength can be transformed into votes which we needed

most in order to put into power our party leaders and candidates.

8. Reviving and re-integrating the areas with CDP members and friendsoutside the 30 re-established district-/clustered district organizations .

9. Bringing our candidates and our party to public attention. This is veryimportant because we have just been accredited as a national political

party and we will be participating in the upcoming 2013 elections. We must

bring our candidates to the public not only on their names but most

importantly on the centrist values, ideologies, principles and platform of

government they commit to represent. This is our first step in putting CDP,

as a serious political party, to the electorate. Because we submit ourselves

to the public, expect that we will be subject to public scrutiny, politicalattacks and others common in our countrys politics in times of elections.

Our remedy for this is a well planned campaign strategy of our candidates

and to continue in believing that we are an ideologically based and

platform orientated political party. This is the beginning for our long

journey to submit ourselves to the Filipino people. Hence, let us take this

opportunity of campaigning for our candidates as the time to campaign for

CDP also.

Are you all with me to these major challenges that we will be working together in

the next three (3) months?


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Kailangan ko po talaga ang inyong mga suporta dahil kapag wala po kayo, wala

ding kabuluhan ang opisina ang isang Secretary General sa ating partido. And at

this point, I give honor to the former Sec. General Ms. Jackylen dela Pena, the

Regional Chairperson of Central Visayas, who is responsible in working really hard

and sacrificing so much while we were still on the process of making our political

party approved by the Commission on Elections.

Party President, Congressman Rufus Rodriguez, it will be an honor to serve with

you and the party chairman, Mr. Lito Monico C. Lorenzana and the rest of the

newly elected officers of the CDP National Executive Board. To the members of

the national secretariat whom I shall be working hard together, the treasurer and

everyone, I enjoined all of you to help me and together we can tackle the

challenges day by day.

To our CDP Consultant, the Representative of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS)

here in the Philippines, Dr. Peter Koeppinger, thank you for you never ceased in

believing in us Filipinos and to borrow the words of our new president Cong.

Rufus, If a foreign entity or a foreigner have so much faith in us, why then cant

we have faith in ourselves as Filipinos.

To my fellow members and officers in other region here in Metro Manila, in

Luzonparticularly someone I personally know to be very hardworking and

committed CDM and CDP officer, Dr. Nenita Manongsong and in Northern

Mindanao district officers and members, particularly here with us our Chairman

Jordan Jay C. Antolin and our Regional Secretary Gil S. Etulle, who worked very

closely together along with my husband, Jun Dumaug, the former CDM National

President, whose constant guidance and initiatives have made our region

Northern Mindanao properly guided in this new endeavor of establishing

authentic political party for our Philippine democracy , thank you.

My inspirations had always been my humble beginning as a daughter to poor but

loving parents whom I think is a perfect representation of the general population

of Filipino family. It is to the millions of our kind that made me desire to have a

better Philippines.


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I know that we are all excited as we are moving towards another phase of our

partys growth that is to actually participate in holding political power. About

three years ago when we just started, we could not believe that we will reach this

moment. This is really happening.

Let us not forget that we came from a simple political movement, have decided to

become a party and now as a national party at par and competing with the

existing, old and traditional parties of the Philippines.

Every phase of our growth is filled with momentous events and wonderful,

successful experiences. Let us continue our culture of survival and a culture to

succeed. We are all optimistic that with CDP around as the new kid on the block

the country will have a bright future.

Lastly and finally, I thank my God who had been the source of my strength and

who for me is the very source of our dignity as human beings.

So, are you with me, my party mates?

Maayong hapon Kanatong tanan and I welcome you now for an open forum.

secgen acceptance speech priorities and challenges for the cdp

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