Camille Villar clarifies ‘new voice’ tag: It’s because I’m a millennial
Las Piñas Rep. Camille Villar filed her certificate of candidacy on Friday, October 4, 2024, to run for senator in the 2025 polls. INQUIRER.net/John Eric Mendoza
MANILA, Philippines — Senatorial candidate and House Deputy Speaker Camille Villar has clarified her campaign branding of being a “new voice,” saying this stems from her being a member of a younger generation that can help craft laws attuned with modern times.
In an ambush interview on the sidelines of the Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas press conference on Tuesday, Villar admitted that she heard criticisms about her campaign slogan “Bagong Boses, Bagong Bukas” (New Voice, New Tomorrow) with netizens claiming she is not a new voice as her parents and brother have been politicians.
“Yes, our family has been in public service for a long time, and I do not see any problem with that because in fact, my parents served as my inspiration to be a public servant. They’re the ones who taught me the importance of being humble, working hard to succeed in life so that we can support the businesses, and to help as many people as we can,” she said in Filipino.
“However, me, belonging to the millennial generation, I grew up with a different worldview. There are so many advancements in technologies, there are advancements and changes around the world, and I feel we have to input in our legislations and in our programs,” she added.
According to Villar, an example of how her age can help contribute to legislation is the belief that some students would need tablets to help them in their studies.
“For example, in our educational sector, our youth, in addition to giving them scholarships, we should examine if they should get free tablets, including our teachers. That should be part of our curriculum and part of our educational program because moving forward, how do we make our students and graduates competitive for them to get jobs if they do not have books or tablets?” she said.
“So there are a lot of innovations that we should include. So that is the new perspective, new action, and new solutions that I want to advocate because I belong to a younger generation; so yes, the problems that we want to address are unemployment, additional jobs, low wages, or even the increase in the prices of goods, we talk about that,” she added.
READ: Camille Villar files bill to address AI, digital disruption in workforce
Netizens have also questioned Villar’s claim as a new voice because she comes from a family of politicians, describing her family as a “political dynasty.”
Villar is the fourth from her family to seek a Senate seat. Her father, former Senate President Manny Villar, was a senator from 2001 to 2013, while her mother, Senator Cynthia Villar, won in the 2013 and 2019 midterm elections. Villar’s brother, former Public Works Secretary Mark Villar, is an incumbent senator.
In the 2025 midterm polls, Senator Cynthia will run for Las Piñas’ legislative district, which will be vacated by her daughter due to term limits. Senator Cynthia cannot also run for senator due to term limits.
In October 2024, during the filing of the certificates of candidacy (COC), Villar addressed the political dynasty tag attributed to her family, saying that it is the voters’ choice to pick candidates whom they trust.
READ: Camille Villar on political dynasty issue: We won’t waste public’s trust
Meanwhile, when Senator Cynthia filed her COC for Las Piñas representative, she rejected claims that her family is a political dynasty, calling Las Piñas a “legacy” of her late father, former Mayor Filemon Aguilar.
READ: Cynthia Villar rejects dynasty tag: It was legacy of my father
“We’re not a dynasty. We’re a family but it has been done by my father since 1963, he passed on to us our beloved Las Piñas, and I thought it was for the memory of my father who really loved Las Piñas when he was alive,” she said in Filipino.
