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GIVE OUR CONSTITUTION A CHANCE: The forms of government, its structure and organization is an issue subsidiary to the more essential question of good faith or the lack of it. How congressmen belonging to the majority party respect, and adhere to the supreme law of the land gives us a clue as to their motivations for proposing amendments or revisions and subsequently, how it will treat a new constitution, if at all. More telling is how they disregard widespread public opinion to further their questionable agenda.

If good faith is the measure, then they have utterly failed. They want constitutional change but their manner and method is glaringly unconstitutional. They argue the legal processes but ‘ram down,’ surreptitious legal maneuvers are just too revealing. They speak of hope and economic prosperity yet there has been a continuing silence on justice and equity. Many times recent, truth and justice had to yield to political expediency and opportunism, Garci scandal, NBN-ZTE, Joc-Joc Bolante, etc. Charter change at this time will not help and heal this suffering nation whose wounds they themselves inflict.

There is a need to remind these elected big shots that it is ultimately about the good of the Filipino people, a good that must be built on a foundation of genuine love and public service, not immoral compromises.

The most overwhelming problem this country faces is not the form of government, but those in government --- that inbred culture which allows unbridled corruption causing enslaving poverty. All these weaken and haunt our institutions that further structural injustices. At the end of the day, it is all about GREED… maintaining material wealth, political influence and power.

We must then conclude that this indeed is a moral problem in need of a moral solution, and the irony of ironies? It is in giving our constitution a chance to take shape and come into its own, whose promise is yet to be realized in the minds and hearts of Filipinos where it may ‘develop its sinews and gather its strength.’ This is where the moral challenge lies.

The Philippines’ 22-year old Constitution is both new and old in content. Being crafted in 1987, its most essential contents were based on the lessons learned from the country’s martial law experience. But it did not abandon fundamental principles from earlier Constitutions.

Bro. Eddie is in favor of Constitutional amendments through a Constitutional Convention, but only when a new administration is in place after the 2010 elections. This is to ensure that no national activity as big as changing the basic law of the land will interfere in the successful conduct of the 2010 election – considered to be the most important elections post-EDSA ’86.

We need to oppose the drive of foreign investors and their local political and business partners to scrap and replace the nationalistic and protectionist provisions in the Philippine Constitution, specifically those reserving ownership of land and media to Filipino citizens and further opening up the country to the U.S. military presence in exchange for widening politicians’ privileges. If there is need for Charter Change, it should be for expanding not abolishing its pro-Filipino provisions. However, this progressive constitutional change can only come about under a genuinely nationalist pro-Filipino government leadership and presidency, which has yet to be realized in the country’s history. In the meantime, patriotic Filipinos should oppose any further reduction of their national wealth, sovereignty and patrimony through Charter Change.

I am for Charter Change. The 1987 Constitution is not a perfect document and there are a number of items that need to be modified for our country to develop economically. As Chairman of the Constitutional Change Committee in the Senate, I held nationwide hearings on the provisions that need to be changed. I even authored the law enabling the People’s Initiative.

I believe that the best way to change the constitution is through a Constitutional Convention, an exercise that I have participated in as the youngest delegate in the 1971 Con-Con.

The Con-Con provides three things for improving national governance:
1. This mechanism provides a venue for long, transparent and meaningful debates held by experts whose sole duty is constitutional reform, which should lead to a more optimal list of constitutional amendments to be proposed to the voters at large.
2. The system of electing delegates provides a mechanism that the people will have a real sense of owning the fundamental law of the land and no one feels left out.
3. The Con-Con also encourages the creation of a new breed of politicians. This was the experience with the 1971 Con-Con where many of the delegates came from non-traditional backgrounds, given how traditional politicians were more focused on permanent local political positions like Senator, Congressman, Mayor,etc.

I have said before that if we amend or revise the Constitution, the decision should come from the people. This means that the provisions that have to be changed should also come from the people, through their elected delegates.

However, I have two key sections that I want modified.
1. As I said, I want the Ombudsman to be an elected position.
2. I want to extend the terms of local officials to 6-years, with one re-election. The 3 year term is not sufficient for a local official to make meaningful changes, especially those that are controversial in the short-term. 3-year terms require constant electioneering rather than governing.

While there are elements in the Constitution which can be improved, this is the wrong time and context for charter change. Instead, a constitutional convention can be convened sometime in 2013 to enable the new government to demonstrate what positive developments can be achieved given the existing regime of laws and constitutional imperatives. I will personally oppose term extensions and provisions that would sell out the patrimony of the country, among others.

Constitutional Amendments

-We recognize that the 1987 Constitution is a reactive constitution, partly with the purpose to remove all vestiges of a dictatorial regime – a transient goal that it has already performed. Nonetheless, it has much room for enhancements to reduce its ambiguities that have hampered the creation of synergies among our government institutions and to remove its restrictive provisions, which have adversely affected the pace of the country’s economic development.

-The Lakas-Kampi-CMD espouses the call for a constitutional convention where various proposals advocacies and issues shall be discussed openly, by delegates freely chosen by the people. This convention shall, among others:

--Tackle the need to evolve whole concept of local autonomy with the end in view of increasing the capacity of the LGUs to serve the people, granting the flexibility for Congress to decide on increasing to regional and local autonomy, such as the creation of a separate Palawan region on its own.

-- Review the present structure of government with the end in view of moving towards a presidential unicameral system, where members of the cabinet can be taken from the assembly or the congress.

-- Amend the overly restrictive economic provisions not merely for foreign investment but also for domestic investment. The proposal to allow foreigners to own land in the country must be tempered by limitations as to the size of the lands they can own for residential as well as industrial purposes and only during the course of their doing business here. Certain types of land ownership should be acceptable such as commercial, industrial, tourist and residential lands above certain values. Agricultural lands and low cost housing should not be adversely affected.

-We all recognize that the 1987 Constitution is not perfect. Charter change should not be assailed before it even begins. That being said, it is also the responsibility of our political leaders to ensure that our people will not cast any doubt about possible personal gains on the part of those conducting the process. If we must go through it, we should: (1) proceed early in the term of the new administration, (2) use the least controversial mode of a constitutional convention, and (3) make sure that each amendment shall be itemized in the ensuing referendum process.

* LAKAS-CMD Platform

The only way to liberate the Philippines from poverty and underdevelopment is to forge an economy made prosperous and job-rich by genuine, pro-Filipino industrialization and agrarian social justice. The country must break away from the stranglehold of unequal and exploitative “neoliberal” policies dictated by the Internatioal Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization that forever reduce the economy to mere supplier of cheap raw materials, assembly services, workers and professionals to the rich, industrialized countries, and mere captive market for expensive imports. Full and deep Filipino-owned-and-controlled processing, rather than export to foreign markets, of the country’s rich natural resources, from coconut and abaca to gold, should be pursued. We need truly nationalistic policies that prioritize Philippine natural and human resources for Filipino-owned industries and that transfer control of our economy to Filipinos.

Bangon Pilipinas will energize the economy through our Centerpiece Economic Program, SME Generation, Growth and Development, using 8 principles to guide our economic program, which can be summarized in these three terms: Self-Reliance, Self-Sufficiency, and Development by National Will and Consensus.

PRINCIPLE #9: Common Good. The common good is the “sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and easily.” (#74 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.) “The principle of the common good, to which every aspect of social life must be related if it is to attain its fuller meaning, stems from the dignity and equality of all people. The common good is the reason that political community exists. The State is an expression of civil society, and as such must guarantee its unity, coherency and organization in order that the common good may be attained.” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.) Elements of the Common Good: a) respect for, and promotion of, the fundamental rights of the person; b) prosperity, or the development of the spiritual and temporal goods of society; and c) the peace and security of the group and its members. (#1925, Catechism of the Catholic Church)

PLATFORM – ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

32. Ensure rapid and sustained economic growth for sustainable poverty reduction and better quality of life for all by:

a) reviewing and rationalizing all outstanding public debts and limiting future government borrowings within the growth level of our exports, OFW remittances or GDP.
b) raising private and public savings rates to increase total investment rate;
c) enhancing investments in human resource development, especially by strengthening education in the sciences, mathematics, engineering and English;
d) streamlining government bureaucracy to reduce personnel expenditures (besides educing corruption);
e) drastically improving tax administration and revenue collection;
f) abolishing laws, rules and regulations that give government personnel, like the BIR, the discretion to allow or disallow certain deductions or exemptions, etc.;
g) prioritizing agricultural development to attain a high degree of self-sufficiency by encouraging productivity through the introduction of new technologies and support-infrastructure;
h) creating micro-finance and other credit facilities for small enterprises by harnessing OFW remittances and more exports for economic development;
i) encouraging livelihood through the formation of cooperatives and other small enterprises and development programs to alleviate poverty in the grassroots level.
j) implementing the Agrarian Reform Program;
k) promoting industrialization by encouraging the expansion of useful industries, including telecommunications and information technology, to more effectively harness our God-given resources for the economic well-being of the people;
l) attaining a stable balance of trade by encouraging the development of new export products and improving existing ones.

6. From government policies influenced by well-connected private interests to a leadership that executes all the laws of the land with impartiality and decisiveness.

7. From treating the rural economy as just a source of problems, to recognizing farms and rural enterprises as vital to achieving food security and more equitable economic growth, worthy of re-investment for sustained productivity.

8. From government anti-poverty programs that instill a dole-out mentality to well-considered programs that build capacity and create opportunity among the poor and the marginalized in the country.

9. From a government that dampens private initiative and enterprise to a government that creates conditions conducive to the growth and competitiveness of private businesses, big, medium and small.

Public Sector Debt : We will distinguish between two kinds of debts: legitimate and illicit. All legitimate debts will be honored. We will advocate for a change in legislation that automatically pays for all illicit debts obtained through graft and corruption. Instead we will negotiate for the waiver or the drastic reduction of payment for illicit debts. Meanwhile, we will move towards a position of fiscal honesty and responsibility, thereby removing the medium and long term need for borrowings due to fiscal deficits. We will also implement greater transparency and accountability in cases where we do need to borrow to advance the cause of renewing and rebuilding the country.

Trade Liberalization : Trade Liberalization will be undertaken only in the context of integral sustainable development. We will ask the key question: Will trade liberalization advance poverty eradication and social justice? Will it support environmental conservation? The context is crucial and must take into account the unique circumstances in the Philippines. If trade liberalization supports integral sustainable development, we will support it. If not, then we will oppose it. We will examine the specific circumstances involved instead of advocating an ideological approach blind to the existing unique circumstances of each nation state.

Smuggling : We will prosecute smuggling as an illegal activity and eradicate it. Our government will have zero tolerance for corruption including smuggling. There will be no sacred cows. Anybody in government caught in the act of smuggling will be prosecuted, dismissed and placed in jail. At the same time, we will reform customs procedures to discourage smuggling.

Electricity/PPA : Government will ensure adequate electricity supply. This necessitates long-term planning and partnership with the private sector and civil society. We will commit the Philippines to renewable green energy as well as efficient use of electricity through energy conservation, among others. We will lobby for the passage of a new electricity law that would encourage the establishment of a smart grid system that, among others, will enable and reward individual or household energy producers to store their electricity directly into the national grid. We will ensure cost internalization so that social and environmental costs are not passed on to communities and future generations. We must address access to electricity by poor households. We will address the high rates of electricity connected with unethical PPAs, which will be reviewed and renegotiated where necessary.

Rural Development : Rural development is an urgent priority in the larger context of integral sustainability and poverty eradication. Over 70% of the poor reside in rural areas. We will allocate resources and infrastructure in alignment with local plans for sustainable integrated area development. We will build robust local economies on the basis, among others, of Filipino innovations that our state colleges and universities are churning out by the hundreds. We will advance sustainable agriculture together with strategic micro-finance initiatives to augment non-farm income especially of the poor. We will make available education and training programs to provide opportunities for skill enhancement and entrepreneurship. We will remove, once and for all, the historical bias of past governments against sustainable agriculture and rural development.

Tax Reform : We will lessen the tax burden of the poor and ensure that, overall, the tax burden will be equitably distributed. And we will re-structure the taxation policy to be supportive of integral sustainable development. This includes reviewing tariffs, import duties and trade agreements to ensure that they promote the Philippine vision of sustainable development. We will eradicate corruption in both tax collection and disbursement and make sure that those who need the most in society get the most appropriate allocations from the taxes collected by government. To achieve, we will improve the transparency and accountability of tax collection, expenditures and management.

Creating Agri-Entrepreneurs

Our agriculture has remained largely stagnant because of sheer neglect. Most of our farmers have been using 19th century technology with little success in improving their yields and harvests. We will refocus agriculture and agrarian reform support systems towards improving farm productivity, more trainings on better farm technology, improving access to credit, more post harvest facilities and support for farm marketing that to ensure that the gains of farming will be most concentrated on the farmers. The only way to liberate the rural poor is from misery to create a new generation of farmer-entrepreneurs armed with the new knowledge that our own scientists and technicians have developed over the last few decades, who can raise the productive potential of every unit of land.

Tapping OFW Remittances for Direct Investments

Our financial and capital markets must likewise adopt more innovative responses to address the low savings rate in our country. Our overseas workers send back to us around $18 billion dollars yearly – but we have yet to harness these as job-creating investments. If we must double the level of investments within the economy, we must aim to convert even just ten percent of this immense wealth into our direct productive investments.

Support for Macro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs)

Our government must also look into ways of providing financial and technical support for Macro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), in terms of loan grants and the upgrading of equipment and machinery. All in all, research must be directed towards finding ways for the government to minimize bureaucratic obstacles and ownership restrictions, provide adequate utility supplies, and allow for quick and easy access to international markets geared towards enticing local and foreign investors to engage in manufacturing and production in the country.

Competition Policy

We must establish a comprehensive competition policy that diffuses the control of a few players over much of the economic assets in the country. We shall encourage private investments particularly in capital-intensive industries. This policy should properly define monopolies and oligopolies and anti-competitive behavior, clarify penalties and sanctions and establish a regulatory body that can efficiently implement the competition policy. Considering the intricacies innate in developing a competition policy, government must start the process.

Infrastructure Development

The lack of infrastructure has been a major constraint in attracting more investments. Years of underinvestment and poor maintenance has resulted in inadequate in transport facilities such as airports, ports and shipping, railways. The Lakas Kampi CMD shall seek to enhance the country’s system of infrastructures by requiring the integration and convergence of various transport networks to develop intermodal systems that can support efficient transport of people and goods across regions and across the major island groups. We intend to encourage LGUs to plan together for their regional development for which they should be able to access Official Development Assistance funds. It is important that infrastructure in the Philippines has to keep pace with our goal of hastening the growth of the economy.

Public-Private Partnerships in Infrastructure

Given its very narrow fiscal space, the national government is only able to finance an infrastructure spending of 2-3% of GDP, compared to the 7% that the World Bank suggests for developing nations. The Lakas Kampi CMD shall promote public-private partnerships in infrastructure build up, especially in critical growth areas and in helping to capacitate lagging regions and provinces. We will encourage Build-Operate-Transfer projects to be implemented at the local level, provided that these are not redundant and they will complement inter-regional integration.

Inter-Island Logistical System

We shall continue expanding the Strong Republic Nautical Highway system initiated during a Lakas Kampi CMD administration. This has been a most solid response to the uneven development of the island economies, where much of the rural poverty happens because they are cut off from the mainstream of commerce. Unless we rapidly develop our inter-island logistical system, we will remain an economy with wide regional disparities, which create second-generation problems such as massive internal migration leading to the expansion of the urban poor, insurgency and separatism, continued economic marginalization of cultural communities. There is also a need to further liberalize our shipping, ports, air transportation and cargo service, and telecommunication services.

One Town, One Project

Complementing the opportunities opened by the nautical highway system is the One Town, One Product program initiated by the Department of Trade. This program has the potential of quickly creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in small communities. We will expand financing programs for micro, small and medium industries and link these enterprises with the rapidly modernizing retail sector. This will ensure a pattern of development that creates jobs, brings the marginal communities to the mainstream and upgrade the entrepreneurial skills of the population.

Improving Revenue Administration

We will continue to reform our taxation in order to achieve a broader tax base that will enable us to lower tax rates to match global benchmarks. We push for reforms in our tax administration and establish more efficient systems and procedures and benchmarking of tax collection. We shall vigorously implement the attrition system on revenue generating agencies, which provides for the transfer or severance fromgovernment service for failure to meet collection targets, provision of performance standards and review mechanisms and provision of incentivesto our performing collection agency.

Rationalization of fiscal incentives

We shall reform the current system of fiscal incentives in the country which is complicated, fragmented, inefficient, and costly in administrative and revenue terms. The vulnerability of the tax incentive system to syndicated crimes of graft and corruption has resulted to substantial revenue losses and distortions in resource allocation. Aside from the additional revenues that it will generate, rationalizing the current fiscal incentives structure is ultimately concerned with implementing an incentive system that is easy to manage, administer, and monitor, which will encourage a healthy business environment in our country.

* LAKAS-CMD Platform

Government’s role in the economy is central and vital to national success. The economy cannot be delegated merely to the private sector. Government must lead the way. To meet this objective the following programs will be implemented:
• Energy Sufficiency and Efficiency — The current power crisis and the continued volatility of oil prices highlight the need for a long-term and focused energy program to achieve both energy sufficiency and efficiency. We will adopt a comprehensive energy program that should include 1) overhauling and strengthening the Department of Energy, 2) setting clear targets for expansion of power generation capacity, 3) setting targets for the replacement of oil imports with alternative clean energy sources, and 4) setting standards for energy conservation and efficient energy utilization.
• Food Security and Agricultural Development — Food security and sufficiency is the primordial challenge facing the country every year as a result of typhoons and droughts. We believe Government must commit assign top priority to agricultural modernization. We have the human resources, the technical knowhow, and the land and marine resources to exploit.
• Tourism Development and Jobs Creation — Tourism is an export industry and it’s a tremendous jobs creator. And we have the natural beauty of our archipelago, the colorful culture and the people that can make tourism a long-lasting growth industry in our country. With the passage of the Tourism Development Act, attention must now focus on making it come to life through the right implementing rules and regulations, and effective reorganization of the Tourism machinery, and effective management. We set as a minimum the target 5 million tourist arrivals and one million new tourism jobs by 2013.
• Infrastructure Modernization and Jobs Creation — Infrastructure modernization is a must for national development and for Philippine competitiveness in the global economy. This is a challenge that the nation cannot shirk because of lack of resources or whatever. The public investment must be made in the modernization of the nation’s highways, transport systems, ports, airports, and communications. What government cannot provide in terms of capital, the private sector will be encouraged to supply. And whatever domestic investments cannot raise, foreign investments must fill the gap. We set the achievement of $20 billion direct foreign investments in three years.

Steady economic growth that is felt by the masses.

GNP growth is meaningless if poverty and hunger levels and other measures of quality of life remain poor. An Estrada Administration will increase growth while also increasing the country's human development index. This will be achieved by strengthening the country's domestic economy, specifically in the field of agriculture,instead of relying on overseas remittances to increase GNP; and by ensuring that the bulk of the budget goes to services that trickle down to the poor, such as social services and education, instead of to debt servicing or overpriced infrastructure projects.

Alleviating poverty and hunger by achieving food security and ensuring that government's economic gains are directed to truly benefit the poor

The cause of poverty and hunger in this country is massive corruption; studies have shown that the cost of corruption is as much as 20% of the budget. Couple that with government policies that prioritize debtservicing, overpriced infrastructure building with sovereign or government guarantees, and massive importation, and it becomes obvious that poverty alleviation is not the priority of the present administration. An Estrada Administration will be a truly pro-poor government, as exhibited in 1998, through the following social
policies:

1. Correct budget prioritization.
Instead of the bulk of the budget going to debt servicing, priority will instead be directed towards social services, education and health services, both on the national level and on the local level.

2. Strengthening the agricultural industry
Top priority will be given to the achievement of food security by pouring incentives and strengthening the agricultural industry instead of entertaining a policy of importation. Food security will be achieved by 2015, as the country fulfills its commitment to the Millennium Development Goal to halve the number of people who are hungry by 2015.

Gaining investor confidence through peace and order and good governance

The country's budget deficit has blown up to almost P300 Billion caused admittedly by weak revenues. The weak revenues are due to a decrease in investments due to the unstable peace and order situation in Mindanao and the decreased investor confidence caused by the prevailing image of the Philippines as the world's most corrupt country under the Arroyo Administration. An Estrada Administration will increase government revenues by increasing investor confidence. The primary incentive for investors will be the assurance of peace and order, especially in areas like Mindanao, and the setting up of systems that will guarantee less graft and corruption in government, such as increased private sector participation in government procurement by the creation of an Economic Coordinating Council that will review all bids for government projects, a measure set in place during the 1998 term of former President Joseph Estrada. Other measures to increase revenues will include an overhaul of the tax system in order to increase tax collection,as well as increasing the collection of trade taxes by ending smuggling, an effort that was successful during the term of former President Joseph Estrada.

Achieving food security and economic stability by strengthening the agricultural sector

President Joseph Estrada has always believed that agriculture has the potential to be the greatest strength of the Philippine economy if nurtured properly. His contributions to the agricultural sector include the Carabao Law and Irrigation Law which he authored as senator, as well as the highest agricultural growth in 20 years when he was president, a record 12% increase (from =6% to +6.6%) in spite of the effects of the El Nino crisis. An Estrada Administration will achieve food security through the following programs:

1. Agrikulturang Makamasa.
This program was created to give incentives to the agricultural sector for the increase of farm output. Priority was given to the following: irrigation development, research and technology commercialization, post-harvest and processing modernization, and close partnership with investors and industry groups. Local government units were also given prize money of P100 Million for the province that would produce the highest farm output within a period of time. This program has proven to be effective in increasing farm output, as the Estrada Administration reached record-breaking farm output levels, and also achieved the following results: In nine months alone, the Department of Agriculture installed or rehabilitated almost 8,500 irrigation projects that covered 200,000 hectares of farmland and produced an extra yield of 400,000 MT of palay; extended P3.58 billion in loans to more than a quarter-million rural folk and agribusiness enterprises; and built 500 kilometers of farm-to-market roads.

2. Implementation of the Agri-Agra Law through ERAP Bonds.
The Agri-Agra Law or Presidential Decree No. 717 (“Providing and Agrarian Reform Credit and Financing System from Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Through Banking Institutions”) requires the banking sector to allocate at least 25% of its loanable funds for agricultural credit in general, of which 10% of said loanable funds shall be made available to agrarian reform beneficiaries. Prior to the Estrada Administration, there was an alarming lack of compliance with this law. The 1998 Estrada Administration was able to commit itself to this law by creating an alternative compliance mechanism wherein long term bonds called Economic Recovery through Agricultural Productivity (ERAP) Bonds amounting to Fifty Billion Pesos (P50,000,000,000.00) were issued to support projects for economic growth under a revitalized rural development program undertaken in cooperation with the Department of Agrarian Reform.

3. Implementation of the Irrigation Law.
The Irrigation Law (RA 6978), authored by then-Senator Joseph Estrada in 1991, mandated the National Irrigation Administration to irrigate 1.5 Million hectares of agricultural land over a ten-year period. Had this law been fully implemented, farmlands across the nation would already be irrigated instead of depending on rain or water. An Estrada Administration will ensure that this law is fulfilled in order to increase farm output as well as to protect farmers from the El Nino phenomenon.

I want to be known as the Education President. I believe that education is the key to national development for the Philippines to compete and lead in the new Global Economy. As Mayor, I established the Regional Science High School and the U.P extension in Olongapo.

First and foremost, I would like to raise salaries of teachers to P40,000 per month to be able to attract top graduates into teaching. This salary increase will also involve much teacher training and retooling to ensure that our students learn reading, writing, English, science, mathematics, and most importantly, reasoning through the latest pedagogic tools.

At the same time, I would like the Philippines to be the pioneer in the use of electronic books for the delivery of learning materials, first as the Amazon Kindle, but later as a locally manufactured ebook that is sturdy, waterproof and cheap, redesigned by Filipino IT corporations for use in public schools. This would allow students to obtain textbooks directly from DepEd.

I would also like to implement the additional two years of basic education to increase mandatory 10-year Philippine basic education program to twelve years, to make the Filipino educational system at par with the rest of the world.

Finally, I would like to utilize our school systems as a mechanism for improving the health outcomes for our youth. We will increase the scope of classroom feeding programs to diminish drop-out rates and even pay our neediest families money directly whenever they send their children to school. I would improve health clinics within each public school, also to attract parents and other community members.

Finally, I will encourage the creation of a deep pool of knowledge workers by provide scholarships directed towards greater access to vocational training and science/engineering programs, as well as encourage state colleges to focus on research and development, in conjunction with the requirements of private sector in the community (e.g. coconut research in Bicol, aquaculture research in Sulu, electronics research in Central Luzon).

PRINCIPLE #1: Belief in One Almighty God. There is only one eternal Supreme Being, Creator of us all. God’s laws are written in every human heart, summarized in the two-fold command: Love God above all, and the others as yourself.

PRINCIPLE #3: Call to Family, Community and Participation. The human person is not only sacred but inherently social. The God-given institutions of marriage and the family are central and serve as the foundations for social life. They must be supported and strengthened, not undermined. Beyond the family, every person has a right to participate in the wider society and a corresponding duty to work for the advancement of the common good and the well-being of all, especially the poor and the weak.

PRINCIPLE # 4: Rights and Responsibilities. As social beings, our relationships are governed by a web of rights and corresponding duties. Every person has a fundamental right to life and a right to those things that allow them to live a decent life – faith and family, food and shelter, health care and housing, education and employment. In society as a whole, those who exercise authority have a duty to respect the fundamental rights of all persons. Likewise, all citizens have a duty to respect human rights and to fulfill their responsibilities to their families, to each other, and to the larger society.

PRINCIPLE #7: Solidarity. Because of the interdependence of all members of the human family around the globe, we have a moral responsibility to commit ourselves to the common good at all levels: in local communities, in our nation, in the community of nations. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they may be.

PLATFORM – SPIRITUAL DIMENSION

1. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

PLATFORM – MORAL DIMENSION

2. Build a nation of character and promote the integral development and total well-being of all Filipinos through values formation on such universal principles as sanctity of human life and dignity of the human person; call to family, community and participation, common good, rights and responsibilities, preferential option for the poor, dignity of work and rights of workers, solidarity, care for God’s creation, consistent ethic of life, good citizenship, and basic political education.

3. Discourage the glorification of sex and violence, pornography, dishonesty, vice, materialism and hedonism, and replace them with structures of virtue, peace, responsibility and achievement.

4. Abolish all forms of gambling.

7. End violence in school fraternities and other institutions, and regulate sports whose main aim is to inflict physical harm or violence on the opponent.

9. Encourage media to foster values that contribute to the formation of a national commitment that is maka-Diyos, maka-buhay, maka-bayan, at maka-tao.

PLATFORM – ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

32. c) enhance investments in human resource development, especially by strengthening education in the sciences, mathematics, engineering and English;

The existing Educational Program will be overhauled through, among others:
(1) Review and appropriate revision of the curricula for basic education, giving priority on the mastery of students on the national language, English, Philippine pre-history, history, geography, and culture, as well as Mathematics, sciences, engineering and other computational sciences
(2) Ensuring quality graduates from Science High Schools, and Technological Colleges and Universities;
(3) Providing salary adjustments and research and training incentives for all teaching personnel
(4) Establishing Entrepreneurial Community High Schools all over the country

We need to genuinely support Philippine education by canceling and rechanneling at least 160 billion pesos in annual unfair foreign debt and trade payments to the public education budget. In this way, we will provide for completely free education for Filipinos in state colleges and universities and give more substance to the democratic access of the poor youth to adequate education. But beyond this, we need to give provide more substance and depth to the education of the Filipino people in genuine nationalism. This involves debunking the anti-Filipino “neoliberal” economic doctrines fostered by the IMF and WB and other foreign vested interests, educating students about the hidden roots of their underdevelopment through unequal trade, and inculcating among them a genuine deep nationalist vision and mission for the country.

3. From relegating education to just one of many concerns to making education the central strategy for investing in our people, reducing poverty and building national competitiveness.

Education
• Identify the top 100 secondary educational institutions of the country, provide support for their innovative practices, document and disseminate their creative educational practices, and enter into partnerships with them as hubs of educational excellence.
• Do an in-depth study, involving all stakeholders, as basis for the gradual transfer educational services to the cultural non-profit sector of society especially in partnership with the community.
• Create the policy environment for strengthening the role of private education in all levels of the school system.
• Increase the usage of educational vouchers to widen the choices of parents. Increase focus beyond just quantity of education services to quality of education services including more holistic educational approaches that develop multi-talented, creative, critical-thinking, socially-oriented students and citizens. (For other educational initiatives, see section below on Holistic Education and Inner Change.)

Promote Holistic Education and Inner Change

• Host a series of at least 10 global conferences on state-of-the-art frameworks and best practices on multiple-intelligent education, life-long learning, environmental education, appreciative approaches to strategic planning, organizational/societal learning and Theory U, scientific evolutionary spirituality, societal creativity, Lemniscate Approach, and other topics of importance to holistic education and inner change.
• Mainstream learning from these global conferences into the various government, private, and civil society initiatives in education.
• Advance multiple-intelligent education (especially existential, moral, and spiritual intelligence) in public education and encourage all non-government schools and institutional training and human development programs to do the same. (See also discussion above on human development in the dimensions and principles of integral sustainable development.
• Encourage historically relevant and morally uplifting fiestas.
• Encourage mass media to highlight good news, exemplary initiatives, moral courage against corruption, livelihoods that life people out of poverty, environmental conservation, and other topics that help create a culture conducive to GINHAWA or integral sustainable development.
• Encourage religious groups to highlight the importance of social engaged spirituality in creating a better country.
• Upgrade the scientific and technological education and training standards of the country to ensure that the necessary human capacities will be there to support the macro and micro-economic policies and programs envisioned in the section on Eradication of Poverty and Enhanced Quality of Life.
• Encourage the pursuit of higher education in holistic science, appropriate technology and environmentally sound engineering subjects to provide the human capital necessary to mainstream the green technologies and businesses envisioned in the Party’s anti-poverty and quality of life platform.
• Restore primary and secondary education back to 12 years.

Basic Education Sector Reform

We will invest heavily in the knowledge and education of our young, to make them capable and responsible players in an evolving economy as productive workers or as entrepreneurs. We shall work to close the classroom deficit, reduce the teacher to pupil ration in public schools and support the continuous improvements of all schools, enhance teacher quality, and raise learning outcomes by aligning our curriculum design with those of the rest of the world. We will support the development of educational kits that may be digitally delivered to all public schools to build a uniform base of quality learning for our children. These shall involve adopting competency-based standards for hiring and deployment of teachers, further developing the basic education curriculum linked to desired learning outcomes, a multi-year budget format for basic education, school based management wherein every school would come up with their specific school improvement plans with the active involvement of local stakeholders, among others.

Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps)

The Lakas-Kampi-CMD initiated the implementation of the 4P’s program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development in order to ensure that no poor child’s education gets left behind because of extreme poverty. The only way pupils and their families can get out of poverty is by making them productive agents and contributors to the national economy.

Student Loan Program

We will pursue the establishment of a student loan mechanism to help poor but deserving individuals enter into college and finish their education. This program will provide our high school graduates the opportunity to study in college with the least worries of repaying its financial obligations right away. This provides them the vehicle to study with convenience, and without the burden of discontinuing studies in the middle of tertiary education because of lack of finances. This will allow our young people to repay their loans once they already have a job, through their SSS contributions. Students who are interested in this program must apply for an SSS number, as an assurance from our government’s part that they will be repaying their loans. Complementary to this, scholarships shall be given to important yet unpopular courses that the country needs in development, such as international relations, public policy and planning and highly specialized science courses.

Technical and Vocational Trainings

The Lakas Kampi CMD shall vigorously pursue the expansion of technical and vocational education in order to address the requirements of local industries as well as the demand of employers overseas for improved technical skills. This will enhance industrial productivity within the domestic economy and boost the competitiveness of Filipino workers abroad. The current Jobs-directed Scholarship Program of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) aims to extend financial assistance thru scholarship grants to poor but deserving students to pursue TVET and equip them with skills for wage employment, self-employment and/or entrepreneurship. It will allow eligible TVET providers to participate in the grant system for courses responsive to the needs of the communities in terms of job generation and employment facilitation.

* LAKAS-CMD Platform

Investing in our children’s future

President Joseph Estrada has always been committed to providing affordable quality education for the poor.As mayor, he established the San Juan elementary school and high school. As president from 1998 to 2001,he gave the highest real per capita for basic education as compared to all presidents under the present Constitution. He founded the Erap Para Sa Mahirap Scholarship Foundation, which has graduated 16,000 scholars, and the Erap Muslim Youth Foundation, which has allowed poor but deserving Muslim students go to colleges or universities of their own choice anywhere in the world. He has also donated all his salaries from the time that he was mayor to scholarship foundations. As president this 2010, he will:

1. Prioritize education in the budget, as mandated in the Constitution
The Constitution mandates that Article XIV Sec. 5 (5) that the “State shall assign the highest budgetary priority to education.” However, of all presidents under the present Constitution, only the Estrada Administration followed this mandate. An Estrada-Binay Administration will strictly follow this Constitutional mandate in order to give our better access to better quality education.

2. Invest in zero-to-five early childhood education.
Research shows that early experiences shape whether or not a child’s brain develops strong skills for future learning, behavior and success. Investing in early childhood education during the infant and toddler years is particularly critical. An Estrada-Binay administration will invest in early childhood education by mandating and supporting day care centers into incorporating kindergarten and pre-school education in their programs.

3. Achieve Universal Primary Education by 2015
President Joseph Estrada, as the millennium president of the Philippines, signed the Millennium Development Goals initiated by the United Nations. One of the goals that the Estrada Administration committed to for the country is the achievement of universal primary education by the year 2015. This means all children will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling or basic elementary education by 2015. This will be achieved by increasing the budget for basic education, as he had done as president, and fulfilling the
mandate of the Constitution to prioritize education in the national budget. Indigent parents will also be given incentives to send their children to school at least from Grades 1 to 4 through a conditional cash transfer program. To make it less difficult for children to go to school, an Estrada-Binay Administration will also ensure that each municipality has an elementary school so that children will not have to walk more than 5 kilometers just to attend class.

4. Assist Out-of-School Youth
An Estrada Administration will assist out-of-school youth by providing skills training for jobs that do not require a diploma. This is also intended to curb the unemployment rate because 45% of the country’s unemployed are part of the youth who have received no more than a high school education.

5. Make college affordable for everyone
An Estrada Administration will streamline the onerous financial aid application process that discourages students from getting aid for college. An Estrada-Binay Administration will increase the number of government scholarships.

6. Improve the quality of elementary, high school and college education

7. Encourage teachers to stay in the Philippines instead of work abroad
An Estrada Administration will give teachers incentives to stay in the Philippines instead of moving abroad for better paying jobs by (1) increasing teachers’ salaries and (2) increasing teachers’ benefits.

15. From allowing environmental blight to spoil our cities, where both the rich and the poor bear with congestion and urban decay to planning alternative, inclusive urban developments where people of varying income levels are integrated in productive, healthy and safe communities.

16. From a government obsessed with exploiting the country for immediate gains to the detriment of its environment to a government that will encourage sustainable use of resources to benefit the present and future generations.

PRINCIPLE #10: Care for God’s Creation. The world that God created has been entrusted to us, yet our use of it must be directed by God’s plan for creation, not simply for our own benefit. Our stewardship of the earth is participation in God’s act of creating and sustaining the world. In our use of creation, we must be guided by our concern for the welfare of others, both around the world and for generations to come, and by a respect for the intrinsic worth and beauty of all God’s creation.

PLATFORM: GOOD GOVERNANCE

31. Promote a safe, clean, healthy, and wholesome environment, particularly zero waste management; promote stewardship as a way of life; and promote the development of parks throughout the country.

We should end the ravaging of the Philippine forests, earth, seas and air for logging, mining, fishing exports to the rich, industrialized countries, and for the dumping of toxic agro-chemicals, petroleum and coal products into the country and its environment. Foreign companies and governments as well as the politicians who have protected them should be charged and penalized for destroying the Philippine environment for the past century. The government and people should push for a real, drastic, not token, shift to renewable energy, genuine forest conservation and regeneration, organic and non-GMO farming, and zero waste management. The government should take the lead and support Filipino-owned-and-controlled wind and solar energy equipment industries and projects.

The more pressing climate change issue for the Philippines is its vulnerability to the adverse effects of climate change. Thus, a comprehensive strategy for climate change adaptation must be completed and set into motion soonest. The Climate Change Act of 2009 will be fully implemented with the fullest support to the needed technical and human resource capability,

Some prominent elements of our adaptation initiatives are the following:

• The need to provide comprehensive flood control and drainage systems for Metro Manila and other densely populated urban centers at risk. The long-needed Parañaque Spillway project will be pursued. Rehabilitation and expansion of drainage waterways (esteros) will also be an important element in the strategy.

• The technical capability of PAGASA needs to be substantially beefed up with modern equipment and additional professional staff.

• Local governments will be required to formulate and implement disaster management plans, covering both prevention and mitigation.

I have always believed in the government’s key role in protecting the environment. As mayor of Olongapo, we instituted the first sanitary garbage collection program that even charged citizens with garbage collection. Citizens became willing to pay when they saw the quality of the government service provided. Also, when we took over Subic, among my first acts was to ensure the continued protection of the forests within the base. This forest cover has become a revenue earning asset for the Freeport as it hosts many eco-tourism projects internally. I then utilized this experience in promoting more ecologically diverse areas in the Philippines as eco-tourism destinations.

We will also continue the promotion of renewable energy programs, similar to the biofuels and geothermal programs that have turned the Philippines into a global power in these fields. We will also utilize national volunteerism to increase our forest cover, especially in upland areas.

From my track record, it is clear that I will continue my policies of protecting the environment. However, I would also like to stress that climate change is a global problem that even if we Filipinos take care of our forests, we will still be a victim of weather-related disasters that will get worse over time.

As such, I am lobbying for the equally pressing need for improved disaster management. One of my first acts as President will be to roll out our disaster 143 program nationwide. This system institutionalizes disaster preparedness nationally at the barangay level. Each barangay must implement a version of Red Cross 143 which trains volunteers with concrete action plans to prepare for different disasters: typhoons, earthquake, fire, tsunami, floods and volcanic eruptions. We will also require each LGU to maintain sufficient rations, rescue equipment in case of major event, as well as the creation of permanent evacuation centers in each barangay as to limit impact of refugees on the rest of the population.

Uphold the Integrity of Creation

Promote Sustainable Agriculture and Fisheries
• Re-organize the Agricultural and Fisheries Councils (AFCs) at all levels (national, provincial and municipal) to advance sustainable agriculture and fisheries (SAF).
• Mandate NAFC of the Department of Agriculture to conduct tri-sectoral or threefolding provincial and municipal-based consultations as a basis for developing a framework and blueprint for mainstreaming SAF all over the country.
• Identify, with the help of AFCs and other partners, successful SAF initiatives in their respective areas of responsibilities,
• Provide adequate research, technical, training, financial, and social capital formation support for SAF programs and initiatives.
• Provide financial and other incentives for universities and colleges pursuing SAF especially in the area of ecological pest management and self-contained nutrient recycling systems.
• Develop SAF partnerships with donor communities interesting in the greening of Philippine agriculture and fisheries.

Enhance the forest reserves and cover of the country while providing adequate livelihood for forest-based communities.
• Permanently stop logging in all remaining primary forests.
• Allow logging only under conditions of sustainable forestry practices.
• Accelerate the adoption of assisted natural regeneration (ANR) and the use of indigenous forest species in social forestry programs.
• Develop fruit-based, no-tillage agro-forest systems in the uplands.

Increase the social and ecological performance of the mining industry
• Support the passage of the Alternative Mining Act as promoted by progressive legislators.
• Regulate mining operations to make sure that they do not permanently damage the environment, harm human health, and fragment communities.
• Ensure compliance of the mining industry with the provisions for obtaining an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC), especially the requirement of social acceptability.
• Broaden the ownership-base of the mining industry to include substantial partnerships with affected communities and their citizens.
• Give priority to small-scale, community-owned mining operations that are ecological sound and socially responsible.
• Instruct the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to desist from issuing mining claims in watershed and ancestral domain areas.

Promote the expansion of culturally sensitive ecological tourism.
• Identify, using broad-based consultations, the top 20 additional most promising eco-cultural sites in the country especially those with breath-taking natural features and dramatic historical events important for the promotion of sterling Filipino values.
• Pour infrastructure and promotional resources to develop these additional
• Discourage, through regulation, eco-tourism activities that have either commodified a culture or degenerated into a cover for morally questionable activities including prostitution and drug use.

Improve air quality of major human settlements in the country.
• Remove all smoke belching vehicles in Metro Manila within the first 1o0 days of a PANGMASA government.
• Remove all smoke belching vehicles in all major cities of the country within the first 6 months of a PANGMASA government.
• Work with transport sector to install fuel-efficient engines by providing, among others, technical and seed financial support.
• Provide incentives for the exploration of transport vehicles based on hydrogen fuels.
• Develop incentives for the installation of mass transport systems.
• Install dedicated human-powered bike lanes in major cities.
• Ensure that the no-smoking ban in public places is strictly enforced.

Improve management, quality and sustainability of the country’s water resources.
• Conduct, in partnership with the appropriate civil society and business partners, a global conference on the scientific and cultural significance of water resources and their implications for better water quality and supply.
• Assess the extent of fresh water intrusion in the aquifers of coastal cities and towns.
• Remove all human activity that hasten the dying of lakes including fishing pens in Laguna de Bay and Taal Lake.
• Ensure the integrity of the country’s watersheds by, among others, preventing illegal logging, mining, and real estate development.

Accelerate the adoption of zero waste management.
• Restructure the whole garbage disposal system to enable segregation at source, composting of organic wastes, recycling of non-biodegradable waste, and proper disposal of toxic medical wastes.
• Establish strategic partnerships with civil society and business in design, implementing, monitoring, and managing the solid waste of the nation.
• Highlight and reward cities and towns that have exemplary solid waste management systems.
• Ban the use of specific plastics that tend to, among others, clog up the drainage system of cities and towns.

Stop noise pollution
• Define, using threefolding consultation processes and existing laws, appropriate occasion and hours for public music (karaokes, giant sound systems, etc.).
• Ensure total compliance with enacted Executive Orders and/or provincial, city, and municipal ordinances that have a bearing on mitigating or stopping noise pollution.

Develop a strategic response to the challenge of global climate change.
• Advance irrigated sustainable agriculture to mitigate against unpredictable weather patterns.
• Upgrade the scientific and technological capability of PAGASA to monitor and warn against impending super typhoons.
• Delineate the topographic contours and coastlines that will be inundated in the event of rising sea levels.
• Plan, several years in advance, disaster response initiatives against rising sea levels.
• Ensure that the Presidential Task Force on Climate Change involves all key stakeholders and has constant access to the latest global scientific consensus on the impacts of climate change, especially rising sea level estimates.
• Advocate new legislation, or even changes in the Constitution, in the area of area governance to enable LGUs to coordinate and converge efforts in address potential long-term disasters arising from climate change.

Promote the rapid use of consumer-saving, green technologies in the energy sector.
• Create the legal, policy and financial environment to deploy the “smart grid” concept that would enable households and buildings to become net energy producers and income earners.
• Re-negotiate the contracts with Independent Power Producers (IPP) to reduce the cost of electricity for millions of Filipinos.
• Ensure transparency and accountability for all energy producers and distributors.
• Accelerate the development of indigenous sources of energy especially environmentally-sound geothermal, solar, wind, hydro and tidal energies.
• Launch a massive research and development effort on hydrogen fuels.
• Promote the use of high cellulose biofuels instead of relying on food-based biofuels like sugarcane
• Dismantle the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant which is highly defective and cannot be fixed. Use the facility as an eco-tourist center for green energy, history, and as a monument to the folly of corruption.

Disaster Response

We support the enactment of a National Disaster Law that would provide greater flexibility to local government units in disaster risk management, allowing the use of more than the current limits (5% of IRA), not just for disaster response but also for disaster preparedness. This will enable Local Government Units to purchase more logistics in terms of rubber boats, trucks and all other live-support and life-saving mechanisms, even before calamities arrive. More training should be conducted, especially at the local level in terms of coordination, communications, and actual rescue and relief operations. We must also designate specific open elevated areas as disaster evacuation points other than school buildings. We will ask our local government units as well as civic organizations to establish joint action plans for securing their communities and providing needed materials and supplies. At the national level, we shall channel resources to improve the forecasting capabilities of our weather and geological agencies and also to establish more detailed geo-hazard mapping to enhance our disaster preparedness.


Climate Change and Global Warming / Reforestation

The Philippines can best contribute to anti-climate change efforts by way of a massive reforestation program, which can help absorb significant amounts of greenhouse gasses. The first order of business is to demarcate the forest lines of the country with visible boundaries on the ground and use assisted natural regeneration (ANR) methods to re-vegetate our forests. A Lakas Kampi CMD administration shall set aside at the least P 5 billion every year for forest dwelling communities that will provide regular income support for families in forestry cooperatives. We shall leverage these projects against the carbon funds to be able to provide better community services to the beneficiaries. We shall also encourage urban informal settlers to be trained and be part of reforestation program because this could give them a better alternative to improving their families’ futures as compared to remaining in blighted urban conditions.

Biofuels

We support the development of alternative sources of energy, especially because the Philippine economy is highly dependent on fuel imports. The creation of a strong biofuels industry would not only provide dollar savings from imported fuels, but also thousands of new jobs not only in the cities but more importantly in the country-sides. Brazil has done this with their highly successful bio-ethanol program. We have plenty of corn and sugar lands that can provide the needed inputs for biofuels. We shall also develop jathropa as an alternative source of fuel that can provide jobs for our upland communities.

Solid Waste Management

At the policy level, the Solid Waste Act has the clear mandate for solid waste management, which includes handling and final disposal of hazardous wastes. We must encourage as far as possible the recycling of waste materials. LGUs must ensure that at their level, the support system in terms of collection, recycling and disposal are made available. Waste management is principally local government concern but it really begins in every home. We shall support more trainings and information drives on waste management to inculcate the philosophy that every citizen has an obligation to help, especially in waste segregation and composting. We shall also spearhead Environmental Compliance Audits with the support of local communities, civil society, professionals as well as college students.

Illegal Fishing

We all recognize that our fisher-folk are among the poorest and most neglected sectors in the countryside. With little government support, they use very simple boats that allow them to fish not far from the shores. Often, they employ unsound and unsustainable practices such as blasting and poisoning – which have destroyed much of the country’s coastal resources, and which in turn further reduced their daily catch. We shall provide them better options by way of a new program for cooperative fishing, providing them village refrigeration, and assisting them to build their own marketing networks.

* LAKAS-CMD Platform

We need to end the long-running unequal and exploitative foreign economic, political, military ties that shackle the country to underdevelopment. This means abrogating treaties such as the Visiting Forces Agreement and Military Assistance Pact, and putting a stop finally to loan conditions and impositions by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Asian Development Bank, and the dictation of policies by foreign advisers. We need genuine Philippine independence, self-determination and control of our own affairs as a country and people, rather than the treasonous politics of betrayal of the national interest.

Bangon Pilipinas will provide this independent framework of foreign policies that is defined by what is best for the Philippines and
the Filipinos.

(1) Inclusive foreign policy--we shall not discriminate against any country or group of countries by reason of ideological belief or system of government. Some exceptions:

--we shall continue to adhere to one China policy because the issue of Taiwan is, we believe, an internal matter among the Chinese people.

--we shall continue to adhere to the ASEAN stand against Myanmar and its violation of human rights which is a violation of the International Declaration of Human Rights.

(2) Pro-Filipino foreign policy

(3) Pro-environment foreign policy

(4) Pro-peace foreign policy

PRINCIPLE #7: Solidarity. Because of the interdependence of all members of the human family around the globe, we have a moral responsibility to commit ourselves to the common good at all levels: in local communities, in our nation, in the community of nations. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they may be.

PRINCIPLE #11: Peace, Active Nonviolence and Progressive Disarmament. The Kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus is not a Kingdom to be imposed by the force of arms. It is a Kingdom to be built by love. A strategy of nonviolence requires solidarity as well as action. Recourse to armed violence as a method to bring about social transformation cannot be justified. The road to total liberation is not the way of violence, class struggle or hate; it is the way of love, brotherhood and peaceful solidarity. To remove social ills, active nonviolence is our moral countersign to the ideologies of today that espouse armed violence to change the status quo. “All sectors of the Church must actively work for an end to the manufacture and production of the technology of death and the arms trade as part of the Church’s vision of peace.” (Decrees, Art. 23, #3, Second Plenary Council of the Philippines)

PLATFORM: FOREIGN POLICY

41. Strive to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy: “They [peoples] shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not raise sword against another nation, neither shall they train for war again [a gunless society].”

42. Pursue peace based on love, justice, reconciliation, active nonviolence and progressive disarmament.

43. Be a nation that is a friend to all and an enemy to none.

Protection of Migrants & OFWs: We will provide efficient government services: that facilitate both exit and entry; that provide a better match between the needs of countries and the inherent skills and talents of OFWs; that offer counseling and pre-departure orientations; that ensure protection against illegal and unscrupulous recruitment. We will fully implement a system that protects and ensures their rights while overseas. We will help OFWs channel their remittances into investments, savings, entrepreneurship and assets rather than wasteful consumption. We will also install in place the appropriate psycho-social services to mitigate the adverse impact of a parental loss in families throughout the country. And, for the long term, we will create a vibrant, robust, broad-based economy that will provide local jobs to millions of Filipinos so that there would be no need for them to seek their fortune in other shores.

Spratly Issue: The Philippines will assert its sovereignty and protect that part of the Spratlys that rightly belongs to Philippine territory. We can enter into principled partnerships for the development of resources as long as the rights of the Philippines are recognized and respected.

STRENGTHENING TIES WITH THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

An Estrada Administration will strengthen the role of the Philippines as an advocate for democracy and human rights in Asia. A prerequisite to this is a real democracy that benefits the masses and not just the elite.

An Estrada Administration will negotiate carefully with other international claimants to various land and water territories of the Republic of the Philippines in the South China Sea while fighting for Philippine territorial integrity.

An Estrada Administration will strengthen ties, especially trading relations, with Asian neighbors such as China whose economies are growing rapidly.
An Estrada Administration will strengthen relations with receiver countries of the Philippines’ millions of overseas foreign workers in order to ensure our workers’ protection and encourage increased benefits.

An Estrada Administration will maintain the Philippines strong relations with international giants such as the United States but will not compromise on matters that involve the nation’s territorial integrity.

An Estrada Administration will join the effort of the global community to fight climate change and promote bioenergy and agriculture.

13. From a lack of concern for gender disparities and shortfalls, to the promotion of equal gender opportunity in all spheres of public policies and programs.

All forms of gender inequality should be opposed and ended, including unequal pay for equal work, discriminatory access to work, sexual harassment, sexual exploitation and abuse, rape, and sexist culture and biases. Women should enjoy the right to divorce to end abusive and exploitative relationships, a right enjoyed in all countries of the world, except two, the Philippines and Malta.

Bangon Pilipinas Gender Equality Programs:

(1) Strengthening of existing gender and development mainstreaming programs
(2) Carrying out interventions programs for policy gaps that weakens sound laws such as the Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act

PRINCIPLE #4: Rights and Responsibilities. As social beings, our relationships are governed by a web of rights and corresponding duties. Every person has a fundamental right to life and a right to those things that allow them to live a decent life – faith and family, food and shelter, health care and housing, education and employment. In society as a whole, those who exercise authority have a duty to respect the fundamental rights of all persons. Likewise, all citizens have a duty to respect human rights and to fulfill their responsibilities to their families, to each other, and to the larger society.

CHILDREN AND WOMEN

Human and Organ Trafficking: These should be treated as separate issues. We view human trafficking as a total and immoral insult to human dignity. I will not tolerate it in my administration. We need to protect all OFWs to ensure that they do not fall prey to trafficking syndicates. This necessitates building partnerships with both local and foreign agencies and organizations. We also need appropriate policies to control trafficking of organs and especially the exploitation of poverty to entice organ donation. But at the end of the day, poverty eradication, which is the top agenda item of my platform, once successful, will put an end into the senseless trafficking of human beings as well as the desperate attempts of Filipinos to get out of poverty by selling their organs.

Pornography: I am against the sale and distribution of pornographic materials. If there are existing laws which allow public sale of pornographic materials, I will work to have these laws amended or repealed, as needed. We will also regulate the proliferation of public pornography in the Internet. Pornographic materials have nothing to add to the ennoblement of the human spirit. For artistic uses of nudity, my administration will convene a substantive consultation with artists, church leaders, and other cultural leaders to determine the appropriate limits of public nudity. In all instances, we will protect minors. As a proactive measure, we will develop the appropriate partnerships with civil society including religious groups to advocate for a more healthy and constructive relationship with our physical body.

Graft and corruption in all its forms, from kickbacks and outright malversation, bribe-taking, conflict of interest to influence-peddling, should be strongly exposed and combated. Anti-graft and corruption measures should focus on the “big fish”. Moreover, it should include the expose and punishment of politicians for promoting and upholding “free market” and “free trade” policies that back up the foreign plunder and underdevelopment of the Philippine economy.

Bro. Eddie will fight corruption by allocating funds for the following centerpiece programs:

• A more credible and empowered Office of the Ombudsman: The Philippines has a good number of laws against graft and corruption. These laws, when implemented at their fullest, are already enough deterrent against abuses of public officials. Bro. Eddie will work on ensuring that the Office of the Ombudsman lives up to its above-reproach stature as “protector” of the people against inefficient and corrupt officials. If the Office of the Ombudsman effectively performs its mandate, the Ombudsman may then very well claim to be the country’s Anti-Corruption Czar.

• Rigorous performance reviews: The Civil Service Commission’s existing performance reviews for all government officials and employees will be calibrated to make them more rigorous. Bro. Eddie wants to ensure that there will be rewards for efficient public service and discipline/penalty for corrupt practices. The primary purpose of this invigorated performance review is to remind and instill among all public servants that: PUBLIC OFFICE IS A PUBLIC TRUST.

• Institutionalization of an Undersecretary for Moral Reforms in each Executive Department: Each Department will have an Undersecretary for Moral Reforms whose main task will be to ensure that all government officials and employees adhere to the fundamental ethics of being a bureaucrat and that there are programs that will further instill in them good Filipino values.

PRINCIPLE #4: Rights and Responsibilities. As social beings, our relationships are governed by a web of rights and corresponding duties. Every person has a fundamental right to life and a right to those things that allow them to live a decent life – faith and family, food and shelter, health care and housing, education and employment. In society as a whole, those who exercise authority have a duty to respect the fundamental rights of all persons. Likewise, all citizens have a duty to respect human rights and to fulfill their responsibilities to their families, to each other, and to the larger society.

PLATFORM: GOOD GOVERNANCE

25. Abolish the pork barrel system.

27. Make representations before the Supreme Court to bring about the speedy administration of justice.

28. Ensure transparency and public accountability in government activities and transaction; reinforce vigilance against graft and corruption, abuse of authority, and waste in all three branches of the government and at all levels of bureaucracy; ensure that public officials shun profligacy and live within their means.

29. Enforce by administrative/criminal action the failure of public officials to liquidate their cash advances within a reasonable period, not exceeding three months.

30. Undertake a thorough review of the systems and procedures and guidelines on the procurement in all government institutions aimed at forestalling the commission of graft and corruption.

PLATFORM: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

32. d) streamline government bureaucracy to reduce personnel expenditures (besides educing corruption);

f) abolishing laws, rules and regulations that give government personnel, like the BIR, the discretion to allow or disallow certain deductions or exemptions,
etc.;

PLATFORM: POLITICAL CULTURE

38. Apply to everyone the Constitutional ban against relatives of incumbent government officials up to the third degree from seeking public office simultaneously or succeeding the former, and to make it unlawful for any member of the Senate or the House of Representatives to run for another office without first resigning from his/her current position six months before the elections.

39. Promote national and local candidates (servant leaders) who are morally upright and competent and who subscribe to the founding principles and platform of AKP.

40. Require candidates for President, Vice President, Senators and Congressmen to possess a college degree, in addition to the Constitutional requirements for public office.

1. From a President who tolerates corruption to a President who is the nation’s first and most determined fighter of corruption.

I want to stress to people how corruption has corrosive effects on our ability to attract investments. Worse, it has degenerated to the point where corruption kills, as you have seen with the military weapons falling into the hands of the Ampatuans, and our ineffective governance that allows non-seaworthy ships to sail and thus perish even under calm weather. As we have done in Olongapo, Subic and the Tourism Department, we will personally make sure that the law is properly followed.
Let me point out one thing. When we started experiencing corruption in Subic after I left, smuggling prospered, investments went down. All we attracted as investors were the minnows. But the moment we removed corruption, we attracted Hanjin, and much more foreign investment.
We have a number of suggestions as to how to fight corruption:
1. We believe that the Ombudsman should not be an appointed position, but it should be an elective position.
2. We want to focus on declogging the courts, particularly the Sandigan Bayan. We may pilot a jury program that would ensure the faster handling of court cases.
3. We will not pardon a single government official convicted of corruption.
4. We will re-invent the bureaucracy by providing clear guidelines and levels of accountability for each government official.
5. We will streamline and automate key functions to limit official discretion and potential avenues of corruption.
6. We will make tax payments simpler and re-establish the BIR as the National Revenue Authority, with a high payscale to attract young, idealistic individuals into a career for helping national development through the collection of government revenue.
7. We will ensure strict law enforcement, by improving on the urban landscape – street lighting, uniformed bus drivers and vendors – to make crime-fighting easier, set up People’s Law Enforcement Boards and creating a national 161 hotline, similar to 911 in the US, for citizen’s to call for emergencies.

Eradicate Corruption.

Objectives and Timeline
• Remove corruption in all other government agencies within the first year of office of a new government under the leadership of the Party.
• Promote a culture of zero tolerance for corruption in all government agencies.
• Create a 24/7 hotline dedicated to addressing citizens’ complaints regarding any form of corruption in any institution, ensuring an immediate response to these complaints, and reporting to the general public on what action has been taken to stop cases of alleged or actual corruption.
• Ensure that anti-corruption initiatives converge with policies and programs aimed at eradicating poverty and enhancing the quality of life for all.
• Ensure that the legal and judicial system reinforces the political will of the executive branch to wipe out corruption.

Demand Side

Education, Public
• Conduct massive public education, including the placement of appropriate posters in highly visible locations in government offices, regarding the salient provisions of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standard for Public Officials (RA 6713) especially the latter’s provisions on expedited action (within 15 days) on public applications and fees.
• Create a program in government TV and radio dedicated, 24/7, to the topic of eradicating corruption including highlighting the stories of government officials and agencies, LGUs, civil society organizations, businesses, and individuals who have successfully stopped corruption.

Best Practices
• Identify the best (top 100) anti-corruption initiatives and reward these independent efforts with financial and other forms of support as well as mainstream their innovative approaches for others to follow.

Supply Side

Transparency
• Make all government budgets, projects, and expenditures, including the Office of the President, public by prominently displaying this information in the website of all government institutions.

Participation
• Open up all government agencies to anti-corruption partnerships with civil society, business and the general public especially in corruption-prone activities including permits, procurement, fees, certificates, and others.
• Create, together with business and civil society, well-defined implementing rules, regulations, and procedures for honest transactions with government including the loss of benefits and retirement plans for public officials guilty of graft and corruption.
• Clean up the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission and open its membership to civil society and business leaders of known integrity.
• Encourage journalists in tri-media, including bloggers in the Internet, to report cases of corruption or stories of successful struggles against corruption.

Accountability
a. Human Development
• Conduct in-depth behavioral change trainers training, focused on moral and effective governance, for all key staff of government, from the top to the bottom.
• Ensure all employees and officers of government agencies also undergo a similar training where they draw out specific, measurable moral and effective governance practices
• Reform the compensation and benefits package of all government employees to reflect ratings in moral and effective governance.

b. Reward
• Examine the compensation and incentive structure of all government agencies and link these to exemplary performance and integrity.
• Reward, generously, those who uphold integrity and decency in public offices beyond the call of duty.

c. Anti-harassment
• Stop the practice of placing honest civil servants in the “freezer” for refusing to be party to systemic corruption in the institution.
• Strengthen the ability of the Civil Service Commission to insulate public servants from political intervention and to protect qualified and honest public servants from political harassment.

d. Sanctions
• File administrative and criminal cases on erring public servants and private individuals engaged in graft and corruption.
• Fire all government employees engaged in graft and corruption.

Synergy
• (See related initiatives in the section below on moral intelligence under the Holistic Education and Inner Change.)


Improve Political Stability
• Advocate for the passage of a stronger and more sweeping anti-dynasty law that would open the political system to men and women of integrity, competence, and vision.
• Appoint men and women of proven integrity in the Commission on Elections.
• Respect the independence of constitutional bodies while, at the same time, encouraging these bodies to be pro-active in all aspects connected with GINHAWA, integral sustainable development.
• Support a change in the Constitution through the right means (constitutional convention, not constitutional assembly or Con-ass), the right time (sometime after the 2010 elections) and for the right reasons (not term extension nor dubious attempts to sell out the patrimony of the Philippines).

Clean and Responsible Fiscal Management

Improve Fiscal Position of Government and the allocations in the National Budget to attract both domestic and foreign investments, thereby offering more employment opportunities for the poor and ensuring adequate funding for social services and lesser tax burden for the poor.

Flagship
• Stop, beginning with the first 100 days and beyond, the hemorrhage of the national budget due to corruption. Involve anti-corruption focused civil society and business groups in cleaning up the most corrupt government agencies, including but not limited to the Bureau of Customs, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Department of Public Works and Highways, the Department of Education, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Philippine National Police, and others. (See also section on Moral and Effective Governance)
• Demonstrate political will in stopping the misuse of government funds as efforts are made to improve tax collection and make it more equitable.

Collection
• Improve the transparency and accountability of tax collection, expenditures and management
• Assess and improve the effectiveness of performance-based incentive schemes for greater tax collections, for example, the Lateral Attrition Law and
• Assess and improve the effectiveness of programs for improving tax collections, for example, RATES (Run After Tax Evaders)
• Introduce new performance-based incentive packages and better tax collection programs
• Make the tax rate structure friendly to the poor.
• Improve tax collections from medium and large corporations and from “sin taxes” by closing legal loopholes and stopping “creative” accounting.

Disbursement
• Advocate for the removal of pork barrel from the national budget to ensure that tax pesos are used, not to promote transactional politics that worsen the condition of the poor, but to eradicate poverty.
• Involve civil society and business corruption watch groups in procurements and bids of government projects.
• Increase the economic efficiency of government corporations (example National Food Authority) so that these do not drain the national budget.

This is one of the most urgent matters for the new government. Corruption is endemic and has affected most if not all institutions of government. Business and civil society are also affected. This is the reason why eradicating graft and corruption, together with poverty eradication, is on the top of my agenda of governance. I will not tolerate corruption in the ranks of government and I will install the appropriate safeguards and systems to eliminate corruption. Among others, we will create new mechanisms of accountability that involve government, business and civil society. But most of all, we will rebuild a culture of honesty, integrity and service. There will be leadership by example. To demonstrate the political will of my adminstration against graft and corruption, we will clean up the Bureau of Customs and Bureau of Internal Revenue within 100 days after the beginning of the new government.

Higher Standards of Governance

-The Lakas-Kampi-CMD shall institutionalize the concept of performance audits for each and every agency of the government, including the local government units. The government should adopt the best practices, such as performance score cards and oversight reporting and monitoring in order to exact accountability from national government officials as well as local government executives.

-Transparency and accountability would be stronger with the help of a non-state force – the free media and public opinion. We shall to seek to institute community governance groups and multi-sectoral watchdogsover each agency, district, province and city to as partners in performance-based monitoring and oversight to directly provide information on how well or how badly government projects are implemented.

-To deal with corruption we must have no tolerance for it and give less temptation to people by providing adequate compensation for public sector employees. Government processes should be more transparent and should have strict timelines that are client-oriented.

-At the same time, there must effort to improve the standard of living of government officials, to make rules more reasonable and transparent and to reduce the incentives to corruption by removing the institutional impediments to the discovery of the fruits of corruption, such as bank secrecy and tax confidentiality. We support the enactment of the Freedom of Information Act, and to computerize land registration.

Priority Development Assistance Funds

The Priority Development Assistance Funds of legislators is actually a form of equalization in the geographic distribution of government resources. The issue arising from these funds is really in the way the projects are chosen and implemented. However, there is a need for greater transparency in this regard. We shall impose the condition that projects and programs to be funded under the PDAF should be the result of public consultations and town hall meetings conducted with the LGUs and civil society.

* LAKAS-CMD Platform

Achieving transparency and accountability in government

The Arroyo administration has shamed the nation by reaching levels of graft and corruption that have tagged the country as one of the most corrupt countries in the world (Transparency International, Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, World Bank). An Estrada Administration will reverse this reputation through the
following policies:

1. Respect for appointment processes and appointments based on meritocracy instead of loyalty

2. Increased private sector participation in the government procurement process through the creation of an Economic Coordinating Council such as the one created by the Estrada Administration in 1998 comprised of respected business leaders through which all bids for government projects will be scrutinized before being
Approved

3. Bidding out of sugar and rice importation

4. Public participation through real time reports via the internet

5. No sovereign or government guarantees

6. Eliminating recourse to the use of executive privilege when the issue is not a threat to national security

PRINCIPLE #5: Option for the Poor and Vulnerable. The moral test of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. The poor have the most urgent moral claim on the conscience of the nation. Our Christian faith calls on all of us to embrace this preferential love of the poor and vulnerable, to embody it in our lives, and to work to have it shape public policies and priorities.

PRINCIPLE #9: Common Good. The common good is the “sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and easily.” (#74 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.) “The principle of the common good, to which every aspect of social life must be related if it is to attain its fuller meaning, stems from the dignity and equality of all people. The common good is the reason that political community exists. The State is an expression of civil society, and as such must guarantee its unity, coherency and organization in order that the common good may be attained.” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.) Elements of the Common Good: a) respect for, and promotion of, the fundamental rights of the person; b) prosperity, or the development of the spiritual and temporal goods of society; and c) the peace and security of the group and its members. (#1925, Catechism of the Catholic Church)

PLATFORM: GOOD GOVERNANCE

26. Accord high priority to projects and programs for the underprivileged, the indigenous peoples, the elderly, the prisoners, the disabled, the veterans and the youth, and support non-government organizations or communities whose projects directly benefit the poor.

Bro. Eddie’s health agenda will harness public (national and local) and private partnerships. The limitations of the national government in the health budget will hopefully be augmented by such partnerships. An improved health care financing strategy will ensure:

• access to health care for both the rich and poor

• free health care services to those who cannot afford it

• local government’s successful financial schemes to subsidize indigent patients (Ex: best practices awarded by Galing Pook)

Apart from these priority programs, priority will also be given to the Philippine General Hospital. Through enough funding, its facilities will be upgraded and its health professionals will be given more training to make PGH a world-class hospital that can provide services comparable to that of private hospitals.

The modernization of tertiary government hospitals, especially provincial hospitals, will also be given priority.

The country needs a pro-Filipino health care policy that eliminates dependence on expensive imported medicine and medical equipment, and provides adequate priority funding for public health care.


The policy will focus on development of a fully Filipino owned and controlled pharmaceutical industry based on local medicinal herbs and making affordably-priced medicine available to the majority of Filipinos. It will also focus on prioritizing preventive health care and ensuring adequate and much higher pay for public health care workers and adequate public funding for public health facilities in line with the World Health Organization standard of 5 Per cent of Gross National Product (GNP). It will fund this thrust by channeling funds away from odious foreign debt payments and unfair trade payments.

4. From treating health as just another area for political patronage to recognizing the advancement and protection of public health, which includes responsible parenthood, as key measures of good governance.

I believe that citizens should have adequate access to health care. I was the first local official to establish a regional hospital with state of the art medical equipment. I was also the first to address AIDS head on as a social problem. As a volunteer of the Red Cross, I have modernized health and safety capabilities with procurement of modern ambulances, provision of training and capability enhancement through project 143.
My national health care program has two components: clinics and shelter. I plan to utilize the public schools to spearhead improved health outcomes nationwide. This will be via a widespread education program to encourage individual responsibility and self-reliance and lighten government’s load of healthcare costs by promoting a healthier lifestyle. This will also include improving child nutrition through the delivery of nutritious school feeding programs and health education, the upgrading of barangay health clinics either through separate health centers or through the health clinics attached to each school system and the increased provision of nurses, health workers in all public schools. We plan to capitalize on our vibrant and successful local pharmaceutical companies, and provide them with incentives for increase research and development on solutions to major Philippine diseases like dengue, TB, malaria, among others. We will also establish more Botika ng Barangay outlets nationwide.

At the same time, we would like to focus on the lack of adequate housing, which is another cause of low health outcomes. In Metro Manila alone, there are an estimated 544,609 squatter families. Because of Ondoy, unique opportunity for massive urban reorganization in the country. Massive investment in housing can spur development of cement, steel, furniture and other members of construction industry, as was the experience in Singapore. We will start with a Flagship program transforming the Baseco along Manila Bay into prime medium-rise housing development. We will utilize in-city relocation to create dwelling units as medium rise, 6-7 storey apartment complexes, providing each household with 20 sqm. First floor will be retail space, top floor will be community areas.

• Install a nationwide health insurance system, in cooperation with business and civil society, that allows the poor, with a minimal and easily payable premium fee, access to preventive medical approaches as well as primary, secondary, and tertiary medical treatment.
• Task the Department of Health to install a nationwide system of holistic and preventive approaches to medicine.
• Bundle health and nutrition services with educational objectives where appropriate; eg. breakfast feeding and basic gardening programs in school.
• Conduct a massive skills-oriented awareness campaign on sanitation, nutrition, and environmental health to lay the foundations of preventive approaches to health.
• Mobilize development partnerships with indigenous well-drillers, water system engineers, socially responsible businesses, community organizers from civil society to ensure that every community or family has access to clean sources of water.

Universal Participative Health Care

To provide 100% health care for the Philippine population, especially for the poorest among our poor, we should establish a universal participative health care system that shall be cooperatively undertaken between and among local and national government, public and private institutions and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth). The program may adopt the principles of micro-insurance, which some companies and non-governmental organizations are already offering on a limited scale. This should provide the widest health insurance coverage to all our people at the least cost.

Improving Public Health Services

In order to remedy the continuing deterioration of our health delivery systems, we shall rationalize our regional hospital system and make private ventures into health care attractive to investors. In the early 1990s, public hospitals were hastily devolved to local governments. However, local governments were not ready to operate public hospitals and had neither the financial means nor the trained personnel to deliver health services. The hospitals were reverted to the national government but large portions of their budgets were devolved to local governments. The Health Department had little means to improve medical services.

* LAKAS-CMD Platform

A genuine, pro-Filipino industrialization will ensure that adequate, decently paying jobs will be created at home, and that Filipinos will no longer be pushed to migrate abroad Alongside this, Filipino labor must be adequately protected and nurtured through living wages, regularization of work tenure, and defense of migrant rights.

PRINCIPLE #6: Dignity of Work and Rights of Workers. The economy must serve people, not vice versa. Work is a form of continuing participation in God’s act of creation. Work is a way of fulfilling part of our human potential given to us by God. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers, owners and managers must be respected – the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to organize and join unions, to economic initiative, and ownership and private property.

PLATFORM – ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

32. c) enhance investments in human resource development, especially by strengthening education in the sciences, mathematics, engineering and English;
g) prioritize agricultural development to attain a high degree of self-sufficiency by encouraging productivity through the introduction of new technologies and support-infrastructure;
h) create micro-finance and other credit facilities for small enterprises by harnessing OFW remittances and more exports for economic development;
i) encourage livelihood through the formation of cooperatives and other small enterprises and development programs to alleviate poverty in the grassroots level.
j) implement the Agrarian Reform Program;
k) promote industrialization by encouraging the expansion of useful industries, including telecommunications and information technology, to more effectively harness our God-given resources for the economic well-being of the people

The manifesto of a common man shall be heeded: the State shall promote an environment where job and business opportunities will make it possible for every Filipino to have a decent and affordable housing by rationalizing all government agencies involved in housing, leveraging on the resources of the GSIS and SSS or a new provident fund system with stronger terms of reference.

We will develop skilled and smart labor by, among others:
(1) Granting government scholarships for poor but talented minds
Increasing the mandate and budget of TESDA
(2) Establishing Entrepreneurial High Schools that can develop family and community enterprises with the view of also developing skilled and smart labor within the families and communities involved in these enterprises

Overseas employment must be seen as an option, not a necessity. Our goal must continue to be the provision of maximum gainful employment within the country, which can only be achieved with increased investments, both domestic and foreign. In recent years, bad governance has been the primary deterrent to investment in the country. We believe that with the good governance that Bangon Pilipinas will ensure, most of the needed solutions to the impediments to increased investment and job generation will fall into place.

2. From a government that merely conjures economic growth statistics that our people know to be unreal to a government that prioritizes jobs that empower the people and provide them with opportunities to rise above poverty.


10. From a government that treats its people as an export commodity and a means to earn foreign exchange, disregarding the social cost to Filipino families to a government that creates jobs at home, so that working abroad will be a choice rather than a necessity; and when its citizens do choose to become OFWs, their welfare and protection will still be the government’s priority.

Jobs and the Economy

Provide meaningful self and/or work employment for the economically poor as outlined in the various policies and programs that follow below.

Increases government resources for the sustainable modernization of agriculture and fisheries and place priority on agricultural policies and programs that will eradicate poverty.
• Accelerate the passage of a comprehensive land use plan for the country.
• Speed up the implementation of the Agrarian Reform Program on private lands.
• Provide, on a priority basis, agriculture-related support services to Agrarian Reform Communities including, but not limited to, new technologies, roads, credit, post-harvest facilities, and access to broadband Internet services.
• Irrigate all rice lands using both large-scale irrigation infrastructure and artesian wells for small farms.
• Provide branding, packaging, and marketing services to farmers and fisherfolks to enhance their market penetration.
• Remove local monopolies and oligopolies that suppress the prices of farm and fishery products and which extract usurious lending rates from the poor.
• Design, together with microfinance NGOs and banks, an agriculture-oriented micro-finance program that would receive the appropriate financial, technical, and guarantee support from the government.
• Move towards strategic micro-finance where individual micro enterprises (in both rural and urban areas) are interlinked vertically and horizontally into new enterprise networks of larger value added on the basis of mutual solidarity and benefit.
• Build upon existing micro-finance initiatives and set up new micro or small industries based on strategic partnerships between academic institutions (which have pro-poor mature technologies that harness local resources), socially responsible businesses (which have the capability to move mature technologies from the lab to the market place), government institutions (which can provide the necessary supportive policies and incentives) and NGOs (which can ensure the social and ecologically acceptability of the new micro-industries).
• Implement special adult education programs for the rural and urban poor that would improve their knowledge, creativity, planning, and entrepreneurial and management skills.
• (See also policies and programs in the section below on advancing the Integrity of Creation.)

Create macro-economic conditions conducive to the appropriate broad-based and inclusive growth and development of the Philippine economy.
• Renegotiate Philippine commitments in the World Trade Organization and other regional and global trade venues that are anti-poor.
• Put in place the necessary physical, institutional, and social infrastructure that would encourage both domestic and foreign investment in the country. (See policies and programs below.)
• Remove distortions arising from market failures including learning, information, and coordination externalities.
• Diversify the manufacturing and industrial base of the economy by encouraging the entry of new kinds of businesses using innovative technologies that would increase the value-added of enterprises as well as utilize the vast untapped local resources of the country. (See related discussion above on strategic micro-finance and strategic partnerships for new micro and small industries.) [cogon biofuels, CNG from trash, mung sauce]
• Implement new approaches to strategic industry diversification and support including: a) provision of public support and incentives only for specific projects, not entire industrial sectors; b) identification of projects that are new not only to the domestic economy and/or new in terms of technological process used; c) assurance that these specific projects enhance local research and development as well as lead to actual productivity enhancement; and d) stipulation that the government support provided will have a termination period and will not be abused.
• Ensure that the government implementers of this new industrial policy will be not be corrupted and that outside stakeholders, including appropriate civil society partners, are involved in the monitoring and assessment of the implementation of these new industrial policies.
• Set up a national multi-department task force for identifying, assessing, incubating, and mainstreaming promising Philippine-based technological breakthroughs that would enhance the total factor productivity of the economy.
• Improve the access of small and medium enterprises to low cost credit and guarantees.

Protection of Migrant Workers

We shall pursue a balanced approach towards overseas employment by seeking to provide adequate job opportunities in the country while at the same time aiming to protect those who able to acquire overseas jobs. The protection of our migrant workers actually begins with protecting them at the point of recruitment. We shall seek to develop and tap into the entrepreneurial potential of the people within the country to provide more income opportunities to returning Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). We must install more safeguards so that recruiters can provide more assurances of safety for our OFW’s. There should be a more active network of support systems to monitor the conditions of each and every Filipino worker abroad. Government must help establish a system of mutual assistance in every country where Filipino communities are present, to help them cope with emergency problems such as illness, legal issues and repatriation support.

* LAKAS-CMD Platform

Increasing Employment Opportunities

An Estrada Administration will increase employment opportunities by creating an atmosphere conductive to investors through:
1. Achieving peace and order nationwide.
2. Establishing proper fiscal policies.
3. Achieving stability in labor laws and management.


Preventing the Mass Exodus of Workers

An Estrada Administration will prevent the mass exodus of laborers and professionals by:
1. Increasing employment opportunities especially in the following industries:
a. Services, which comprises 55% of the labor force.
b. Agriculture, which comprises 40% of the labor force.

2. Increasing the quality of employment opportunities in the Philippines

There is a mismatch between the employment demand and the available graduates. Our state colleges and universities are not producing graduates that are demanded by the market. That means our graduates are not necessarily equipped with the demands of new businesses and industries such as the business process outsourcing industry or the hospitality industry. An Estrada-Binay Administration will ensure that state colleges and universities offer courses of the 21st century in order to curb the mismatch in employment opportunities.


Increasing Wages and Workers' Benefits

An Estrada Administration will ensure that workers’ benefits provided by law are actually observed. There will be a crackdown on the underpayment of wages, non-payment of holiday pay, non-payment of service incentive leave, non-payment of 13th month pay and non-coverage of social sevices, such as the Social Security System, Home Mutual Development Fund or Pag-ibig and the Philippine Health Insurance Corp.Business permits will not be renewed unless employers prove compliance with the said benefits. An Estrada-Binay Administration will also make sure that minimum wages are sufficient to match the cost of living in an
area.


Protecting and Promoting OFWs

An Estrada Administration envisions an economic climate wherein Filipinos seek opportunities abroad not because they need to but because they want to. This will be achieved by strengthening the domestic economy. While in the process of achieving the country's ideal growth, an Estrada-Binay Administration will assist Overseas Foreign Workers by:
1. Ensuring that they get the best benefits and proper protection against abuse abroad. This will be achieved
by:
(1) Strengthening bilateral relations with receiving countries.
(2) Supporting our labor attaches and welfare officers.
2. Minimizing the social cost borne by separation from their families. This will be achieved by creating a special commission under the Department of Social Welfare and Development specifically to monitor and address the concerns of the families that the OFWs leave behind.
3. Encouraging their return. All efforts will be made to encourage OFWs to return, including:
(1) Giving them incentives to invest their money here.
(2) Creating a commission to study how best to achieve OFWs when they return home.

PRINCIPLE #8: Subsidiarity. It is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable, that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and industry (Pope Pius XI, Quadregesimo Anno). The principle of subsidiarity holds that the functions of government should be performed at the lowest level possible, as long as they can be performed adequately. Otherwise stated, subsidiarity means decisions being taken close to the grass roots.
Strengthen the LOCAL GOVENRMENT CODE; empower barangays.

After thoroughgoing nationwide discussions up to the barangay level, and a shift to a federal form of government – BUT NOT PARLIAMENTARY – proves to be more beneficial for the Filipinos, Bangon Pilipinas will consider this option so that the following may come to reality:
• proceeds of taxation, tariffs and customs will stay in the province or region where it is paid
• diminishing red tape and corruption and subjecting funds to much greater transparency and accountability at the local level
• And emancipating localities from the burden of subsidizing a top-heavy national government

Assertion of Filipino control and independence over local economic affairs and rechanneling of funds to local education, health and science and technology services, as well as local industrialization projects, should be similarly upheld.
Local governance based on nationalist and pro-industrialization economic principles and local initiative and self-reliance should be nurtured and enhanced.

12. From demoralized but dedicated civil servants, military and police personnel destined for failure and frustration due to inadequate operational support to professional, motivated and energized bureaucracies with adequate means to perform their public service missions.

Community Development

• Encourage all barangay councils to convene tri-sectoral consultations with political, business, and civil society leaders/individuals to define their top 6 priority needs/projects for their community. The new government will meet all these needs within its 6-year term with priority financial allocation and technical support given to the poorest communities in the country.
• Rank LGUs in terms of authentic development accomplishments as the basis for designing and delivering incentive programs including cost-sharing and counterpart grant mechanisms for use in infrastructure and other projects.
• Provide strategic investment, trading and human capital formation relationships between economically vibrant cities/towns and economically depressed municipalities and barangays.
• Refine and continue the practice of conditional cash transfers as appropriate but improve the targeting and monitoring mechanisms to ensure optimal support for the poor.
• Revitalize disaster response planning in vulnerable areas of the country especially with the acceleration of climate-change related erratic weather patterns, super typhoons, and the increasing possible of increasing sea levels.

Decentralization and Autonomy
-We believe that there is no strong state in the world where basic services are done by the national government. Our goal for the local government units is really to build their capacity to take the lead role in the delivery of public services. The local government units must take the lead in keeping peace in their communities, disaster relief and relief operations, and in shepherding the provision basic health and education services, in community infrastructure as well as in revenue generation.

-The national administration should utilize policy and program funds as a means to create national-local partnerships in the implementation of government programs, by augmenting the limited funds of the LGUs. Good performing local government units, in accordance with the performance governance scorecards, should be rewarded. However, our poorer municipalities that have been newly formed have to function. They should be given preferential attention in terms building up their capacities. Reward is in one setting. Capacity building is in another.

-But the most crucial thing is alignment between national and local government incentives and directions – an alignment which must consider the fact the we are multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and multi-conditional.

* LAKAS-CMD Platform

PRINCIPLE #5: Option for the Poor and Vulnerable. The moral test of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. The poor have the most urgent moral claim on the conscience of the nation. Our Christian faith calls on all of us to embrace this preferential love of the poor and vulnerable, to embody it in our lives, and to work to have it shape public policies and priorities.

PRINCIPLE #9: Common Good. The common good is the “sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and easily.” (#74 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.) “The principle of the common good, to which every aspect of social life must be related if it is to attain its fuller meaning, stems from the dignity and equality of all people. The common good is the reason that political community exists. The State is an expression of civil society, and as such must guarantee its unity, coherency and organization in order that the common good may be attained.” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.) Elements of the Common Good: a) respect for, and promotion of, the fundamental rights of the person; b) prosperity, or the development of the spiritual and temporal goods of society; and c) the peace and security of the group and its members. (#1925, Catechism of the Catholic Church)

PLATFORM: GOOD GOVERNANCE

26. Accord high priority to projects and programs for the underprivileged, the indigenous peoples, the elderly, the prisoners, the disabled, the veterans and the youth, and support non-government organizations or communities whose projects directly benefit the poor.

Among others, Bangon Pilipinas’ programs for the marginalized sector include:

(1) calling and leading consultations between all stakeholders on the issuance of Certificate of Ancestral Domain Titles as regards Ancestral Domain, to settle questions of jurisdiction once and for all

(2) bringing back the DENR’s Department Administrative Order (DAO) 2001-17, a landmark in the use of the Archipelagic Principle in delineating municipal waters, thereby protecting our waters as well as our small and middle fishermen

There is a crying need to finally abolish the centuries-old feudalism and hacienda system that have plagued the Philippine peasantry and poor. We need a genuine agrarian reform program that truly promotes social justice and income redistribution away from the landed and trader elite to the farmers. A truly pro-poor Philippine government should provide adequate and much higher price support to Filipino farmers, as well as affordable locally-produced farming inputs.such as organic fertilizer, transport, energy and irrigation equipment through genuine, Filipino-owned-and-controlled industrialization. In the spirit of social justice, anti-farmer laws and programs, such as the CARP’s stock distribution option allowing big hacienda owners to evade land transfer, should be abolished, and the haciendas thus unredistributed, to be redistributed to the farmers.

5. From justice that money and connections can buy to a truly impartial system of institutions that deliver equal justice to rich or poor.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

Agrarian Reform/CARPER : We will prioritize rural sustainable development including a comprehensive sustainable agriculture program and genuine agrarian reform. We will speed up the proper implementation of the Agrarian Reform Program on affected private lands. We will provide agriculture-related support services to Agrarian Reform Communities so essential for the success of new landowners. We will accelerate the passage of a comprehensive land use plan for the country that can ensure food security.

IP Rights & Ancestral Domain: We affirm and recognize the rights of indigenous communities including a comprehensive approach to ancestral domain. We will renegotiate the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA AD) with the MILF, provided, among others, appropriate and widespread consultations are done on both sides of the party and the relationship between the proposed Bangsomore Juridical Entity and the central government is clearly defined. We will address conflicting land-use issues on the basis of integral sustainable development.

Housing/Resettlement & Urban Poor: There is an urgent need to address housing and to ensure that informal urban settlers have access to safe and adequate housing. We must partner with civil society and business to provide a holistic approach to meeting the housing needs of economically poor families while addressing the need to rehabilitate river systems and riverbank areas. We will ensure that resettlement efforts will be based on respectful and adequate consultations with affected sectors and that resettlement areas will have adequate livelihood opportunities. At the same time, we will address the imbalance in urban and rural development that drives migration to the cities.

Human Rights: Human rights are sacrosanct. We will respect and protect them to the fullest extent possible. The new administrationwill cultivate a culture of respect for human rights in all agencies and affairs of government as well in the public at large through appropriate partnerships with civil society groups.

We have to be more serious with our population because our economic growth cannot keep up with our population growth. That's one thing that's why poverty is more now than before. So I would say that we should concentrate on giving the women the free choice and promote family planning -- modern family planning and natural family planning -- to prevent unwanted pregnancies and we have to be serious really in addressing our population.

The two aspects to maternal health, the structural aspect and the more individual aspect. The structural aspect refers to the fact that basically a lot of the poverty and a lot of aspects connected to maternal health are actually driven by social injustice. There has to be a structural understanding of the dynamics. Second, the reproductive health bill which is closely associated with this issue I think needs further refinement. I personally am against abortion but at the same time I am also open to different types of contraceptives, education and support to ease down the problems of population pressure. But in my understanding of talking with different people involving this issue there's a lot of different understanding of definition of terms so I think that bill should be further refined.

When we talk about maternal health, we will have to talk bout the reproductive health code and I have to be candid that I oppose this. The problem with the reproductive health code is that it is premised on overpopulation. Another issue that I have is the safety of the chemical and mechanical commodities being introduced by the reproductive health code. I do not agree that government should spend more so declare contraceptives as essential medicines.

I believe that it is really staggering to know that at least 162 mothers still die out of every hundred thousand in this country when they give child birth. That means there's still lack of education, lack of preparations before pregnancy and lack of access to adequate medical care. And that is why it is important that we focus on this, I think we can reach the goal of 52 deaths in the year 2015. I'm suggesting that all these people with health background can be utilized to assist in the country side and to go on a massive education campaign so that mothers can be prepared for this. Second, in terms of population, I subscribe to the idea of a system of disincentives. For example, if you have two, then you should no longer be qualified for free public education or free public health services. It is important that we have responsibilities; we cannot just go on roulette in terms of trying to find out how we can address this child birth.

The root of the Mindanao problem lies in injustice in various forms (social, economic, political, cultural), and until tangible initiatives to address the long-standing injustices in Mindanao are convincingly taken, peace and development in Mindanao will remain elusive.

Basic to the attainment of this is the faithful implementation of the provisions of the Tripoli Agreement, which remains the biggest irritant to political settlement in Mindanao. Bro. Eddie will make this a priority because he believes that political settlement to the Mindanao peace problem is clearly the prerequisite to achieving sustainable development in Mindanao. A widely consultative process must be set in motion to achieve this and avoid the pitfalls of the failed MOA-AD.

14. From a disjointed, short-sighted Mindanao policy that merely reacts to events and incidents to one that seeks a broadly supported just peace and will redress decades of neglect of the Moro and other peoples of Mindanao.

Mindanao has long been a land impoverished by foreign agribusiness, logging, mining, fishing and other economic interests and their local partners. It has also been the locale for grabbing of Moro and Lumad lands by so-called Christians, fuelling separatist and religious conflict. It has also been the medieval setting for feudal warlord-trading clans wielding arms, sowing terror and selling votes in cahoots with exploitative foreign investors, the Philippine military and police, and Malacanang vote buyers.

The resolution of the Mindanao conflict can only be the realization of a truly independent and industrialized economy and politics free from foreign control and feudalism. Like the rest of the Philippines, Mindanao should be developed along the lines of freedom from the “free market/free trade” policies dictated by the IMF, WB and WTO and other foreign agencies. Free from such dictation, Mindanao can truly become a land of promise and lasting peace made prosperous by genuine, Filipino-owned-and-controlled industrialization and genuine agrarian reform and justice measures.

PRINCIPLE #11: Peace, Active Nonviolence and Progressive Disarmament. The Kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus is not a Kingdom to be imposed by the force of arms. It is a Kingdom to be built by love. A strategy of nonviolence requires solidarity as well as action. Recourse to armed violence as a method to bring about social transformation cannot be justified. The road to total liberation is not the way of violence, class struggle or hate; it is the way of love, brotherhood and peaceful solidarity. To remove social ills, active nonviolence is our moral countersign to the ideologies of today that espouse armed violence to change the status quo. “All sectors of the Church must actively work for an end to the manufacture and production of the technology of death and the arms trade as part of the Church’s vision of peace.” (Decrees, Art. 23, #3, Second Plenary Council of the Philippines)
PLATFORM: MULTI-DIMENSIONAL APPROACH TO PEACE

12. Make it a criminal offense for anyone except police officers or soldiers and licensed private security guards in uniform and on duty, to carry firearms or any other weapons in public places.
13. Increase the penalty for illegal possession of firearms or violation of any firearms law to reclusion temporal (12 to 20 years without parole or pardon). Impose perpetual disqualification to hold public office on violators who are public officials.

14. Disallow the obscuring of the windows of motor vehicles. (This makes sense in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling that vehicles should not be searched nor occupants subjected to bodily search.)

15. Ban the exhibit and/or sale of firearms and ammunition in malls and other public places.

16. Ban the manufacture, importation or sale of toy guns, air guns or replicas of guns.

17. Ban the export of firearms.

18. Ban the import of guns except high-powered guns for use by the police and the military.

19. Legalize and place under tight government control the local production and sale of firearms for use by the police and military as well as the civilians for sports and home protection. Manufacture and sale of firearms without authorization of the government shall be punishable with the same penalty for illegal possession of firearms as provided in No. 13 above.

20. Require applicants for firearm permits to show to the authorities that he/she has a gun safety deposit box at home approved by the police.

21. Mandate the periodic inventory, decommissioning and melting down of all confiscated guns for conversion into manhole covers and other useful instruments.

22. Give financial rewards to those who take advantage of the general amnesty whereby individuals may voluntarily surrender unlicensed firearms with no questions asked and without incurring any criminal or civil liability. No other form of amnesty shall be allowed.

23. Impose the same penalty for illegal possession of firearms on anyone found guilty of “planting evidence” to incriminate others.

24. Formulate and implement a no-nonsense national strategy to eliminate the manufacture, distribution, trafficking, transshipment, sale and use of all illegal drugs.

PLATFORM: POLITICAL CULTURE

33. Maintain civilian supremacy over the military at all times.

34. Fix the term of office of the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces to three years regardless of the statutory age of retirement.

As a Red Cross volunteer, I’ve been to Muslim Mindanao back and forth many times. I’ve been to Sulu, and what I saw there was the lack of governance. For example, there are no public school teachers because the Philippine Regulation Commission are afraid to send people there to get teachers examined. I noticed that judges were not there, they were in Zamboanga. There is no transport infrastructure there. Delicious bunches of mangosteen which retails for P5 to P10 there can easily sell for P80 to P100 in Davao or Manila, if there were transport.

The solution to this problem of violence is development. This development will only occur if the government makes its presence felt in those places. For example, judges should be provided in ARMM and they should be given the kind of security, so that government can enforce its will upon people and people will not need to take the law into their own hands. We have to show the full force of the military, not just for pacification but for infrastructure purposes. Our Fruits of Hope project entailed bringing in a C-130 to pick up the fruits and get it out.

We want to do a full court press on Mindanao, to bring infrastructure and development. With development comes peace. This is the experience in Bohol, which no longer has an NPA rebellion, this is what’s happening in Bicol. We can do the same in Mindanao.

I am for meaningful autonomy, allowing the people of ARMM to benefit directly from the royalties of their land, such as if oil or other mineral deposits are found within ARMM territory. But, I do not believe in the dismemberment of this country. The creation of a separate state means that we have let our own people down. We cannot let this happen. As such, we’ve initiated steps for involving the Muslim identity into the national identity. We’ve set up a statue of Lapu-Lapu, the first Asian-Muslim hero against colonialism, in Luneta. We’ve initiated a law to create a 9th ray to the Philippine flag to adequately recognize the role of Muslims in the anti-colonial revolution. We’ve allocated a budget for the creation of an ecclesiastical-Islamic museum in Intramuros to showcase, side-by-side, the impact of these two Abrahamic religions on our people and to foster greater understanding among Muslims and Christians.

Improve social justice, peace and order.

•Renegotiate the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA AD) with special provisions, among others, for adequate consultation on both Muslim and Christian sides and for clearly defining the relationship between the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) and ARMM and BJE and the national government.
• Advance Muslim concerns including, among others, the expansion of the Office of Muslim Affairs (OMA) to other regions and provinces with large Muslim populations; the appointment of non-political or neutral OMA executives and officials; the hiring of more Muslim staff in Muslim-dedicated government offices including OMA; the expedited flow of Muslim Official Development Assistance (ODA); and the availability of “hallal” slaughterhouses in cities and towns with large Muslim populations.
• Reopen negotiations with NDF/NPA communist rebels.
• Ensure that all peace negotiations with Muslim and NDF/NPA combatants are anchored on the government’s demonstrated political will towards reforming the structural roots of conflict and the pursuit of social justice, including the equitable delivery of government social services, infrastructure, and business incentives.
• Ensure the meaningful and organized participation of indigenous peoples and communities in all matters of governance affecting their interest and future.
• Strengthen the capacity and resources of the council for indigenous people and neutralize the heavy interference of traditional politicians in this council.
• Remove the high-level military and police support for criminal activities and drug trade and clean both the military and police from corrupt elements. (See program details in the Moral and Effective Governance section below.)
• Expedite the removal from public service of rogue military and police officers and personnel.
• Reinstate, to full position and honors, any military or police officer unjustly placed in detention or removed from public office.
• Professionalize the military and police forces by means of adequate incentive systems that reward moral and exemplary conduct and punish violations of law and order.
• Provide adequate comprehensive support to civil society efforts towards a holistic and comprehensive approach to peace.
• Implement and reinforce zoning laws and regulations.

Genuine Peace and Development
-The Lakas-Kampi-CMD believes that peace and security is a pre-condition to the onset of sustainable development in the country. By expanding the country’s economic infrastructure, and enhancing peace and security through the 3D strategy of development, dialogue, and deterrence, major investors will be encouraged to invest in industries that will pave the way for sustainable job creation.

-The multi-faceted problems in Mindanao, such as land disputes, religious conflict, specter of terrorism, should be addressed separately in partnership with the local government units. There really should be an honest to goodness disarmament effort for all non-governmental armed groups.

* LAKAS-CMD Platform

Ending criminal, insurgent and secessionist movements

President Joseph Estrada's primary goal is to achieve peace and order nationwide, especially in Mindanao,because he believes that peace and order is a prerequisite to economic development. His top priority is tobring down crime rates in Metro Manila, especially drug-related activities; end insurgency in the Visayas and other provinces infested with rebels; and end the secessionist movement in Mindanao. Aside from the obvious benefits of peace, ending the secessionist movement is a top priority because the country must send
out the signal to the international community that we are nation that can keep its own laws in its own land,with the underlying objective of removing travel bans or advisories against the Philippines in order to entice investors and tourists to come. Negotiations will still be the priority means to achieve this objective . However,should the MILF continue to renege on peace agreements and sow terror against Filipinos in Mindanao, war may be considered as a last resort or final means to attaining lasting peace.

Bro. Eddie will ensure the institutionalization of policies and the creation of national programs that will ensure the breeding/re-breeding of the culture of patriotism among all Filipinos. “Patriotism” will be a way of life, not simply a rhetoric.

When patriotism breeds, we can all start working together to make our democracy work. We have the right democratic institutions, but, time and again, we have failed as a nation to make it work. It will take genuine patriotism for us to come together and make these institutions work.

The Philippines’ single biggest problem is bad governance. Bad governance breeds abuse of power. It also breeds corruption. And worse, it creates a nation that is demoralized and undignified.

The many years of public neglect, the many years of poverty and lack of opportunities--these have resulted in a national spirit of INDIFFERENCE. Thus, we need to nurture our love for the Philippines and the next generation.

Bro. Eddie, consistent with Bangon Pilipinas’ platform will work to eradicate bad governance. One immediate way to do this is by professionalizing the bureaucracy- from the Presidency down to the ordinary government employee.

PRINCIPLE #9: Common Good. The common good is the “sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and easily.” (#74 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.) “The principle of the common good, to which every aspect of social life must be related if it is to attain its fuller meaning, stems from the dignity and equality of all people. The common good is the reason that political community exists. The State is an expression of civil society, and as such must guarantee its unity, coherency and organization in order that the common good may be attained.” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.) Elements of the Common Good: a) respect for, and promotion of, the fundamental rights of the person; b) prosperity, or the development of the spiritual and temporal goods of society; and c) the peace and security of the group and its members. (#1925, Catechism of the Catholic Church)

PLATFORM: MORAL DIMENSION

4. Abolish all forms of gambling.

5. Abolish the death penalty.

6. End the use of torture.

8. Actively promote responsible parenthood and natural family planning.

9. Encourage media to foster values that contribute to the formation of a national commitment that is maka-Diyos, maka-buhay, maka-bayan, at maka-tao.

PLATFORM: SOCIAL DIMENSION

10. Consistently promote the culture of life, peace, active nonviolence and progressive disarmament.
11. Declare as contrary to public policy, public morals, public interest, good customs and the common good: the glorification of the culture of death and violence in movies, television, videograms, radio, print media, billboards, posters, and the exhibition and sale of guns and the posting of pro-gun stickers in public places.

PLATFORM: GOOD GOVERNANCE

25. Abolish the pork barrel system.

26. Accord high priority to projects and programs for the underprivileged, the indigenous peoples, the elderly, the prisoners, the disabled, the veterans and the youth, and support non-government organizations or communities whose projects directly benefit the poor.

27. Make representations before the Supreme Court to bring about the speedy administration of justice.

28. Ensure transparency and public accountability in government activities and transaction; reinforce vigilance against graft and corruption, abuse of authority, and waste in all three branches of the government and at all levels of bureaucracy; ensure that public officials shun profligacy and live within their means.

29. Enforce by administrative/criminal action the failure of public officials to liquidate their cash advances within a reasonable period, not exceeding three months.

30. Undertake a thorough review of the systems and procedures and guidelines on the procurement in all government institutions aimed at forestalling the commission of graft and corruption.

31. Promote a safe, clean, healthy and wholesome environment, particularly zero waste management; promote stewardship as a way of life; and promote the development of parks throughout the country.

PLATFORM: POLITICAL CULTURE

33. Maintain civilian supremacy over the military at all times.

34. Fix the term of office of the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces to three years regardless of the statutory age of retirement.

35. Disallow active military and police personnel to be assigned as aides and security officers.

36. Forbid elected and appointed public officials to write regular columns, act in movies and television shows, act as commentators or anchorpersons on radio and television, and appear on TV and radio commercials and print advertisements, posters and billboards.

37. Forbid the setting up of billboards or similar media in public places with pictures of the public official responsible for the project or for any other purpose.

The “free market” and “free trade” policies of trade and investment liberalization, price deregulation, privatization and de-Filipinization dictated by the IMF, WB and World Trade Organization should be ended. Control and supervision of the economy by foreign economic interests through the IMF, WB, WTO and other foreign agencies should be terminated. Unfair debt and trade payments should be cancelled and rechanneled to support government education, health and science and technology budgets as well as Filipino-owned-and-controlled industrialization programs and projects.

As a local official, I have had much experience in re-inventing the government bureaucracy. I plan to recreate the 5-F government we set up in Olongapo and Subic: a bureaucracy that is: Fast, Focused, Flexible, Friendly and Forward-looking government.

The main problem in government is the wasted human resources, as it is staffed by people with unclear objectives, limited accountability and misguided incentive systems. The key to improving government bureaucracy is not to eliminate government jobs but to provide all government officials with productive jobs. This is done by provide clear guidelines on government procedures for obtaining necessary permits and licenses. At the same time, we streamline and automate key procedures to limit official discretion and ensure faster processing of permits, licenses, approvals, -- similar to the processes already in place at Subic, Marikina, Olongapo, PEZA.

At the same time, the government departments must work with each other. For example, officials in the DFA must work in concert with DTI and DOT to work on investment promotion, market research and tourism marketing, on top of consular duties, rather than as secretaries of traveling presidents and senators.

Moreover, we plan to benchmark departments against each other, LGU’s against one other. This will speed up the process of the implementation of best practices government wide. Attention will then be directed towards aiding underperforming departments/LGUs.

This reinvention will be done with the help of our community volunteers who provide additional manpower and oversight on their officials.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Form of government. Pending a constitutional convention, we will maintain the current Presidential system. But we will meaningfully address electoral issues and the party system as well as political dynasties and patronage politics.

Election Automation. I fully support the appropriate automation of elections with paper trail for proper auditing and efficient voter registration management. However, we will need to mobilize all the resources and expertise we have to prevent an “electronic Garci” from happening. Without the proper computerized safeguards, cheating will be easier to achieve with election automation.

Pork Barrel: I am totally against the “pork barrel”. Among others, it is the perfect tool for creating and maintaining harmful patronage politics as well as a conduit of corruption. As mentioned previously, development finance should be done on the basis of detailed sustainable integrated area development plans with identified priorities. There should be proper identification of needs and biogeographical equity.

Ownership of Land by Foreigners. I see no need for land ownership by foreigners. First, we have to settle once and for all the ancestral domain claims of our indigenous peoples and Muslim brothers and sisters. Together with these, we have to fully implement the comprehensive agrarian reform program before even thinking about giving our land to foreigners. We can provide security of tenure through mutually beneficial instruments of partnerships between foreign investors and Filipino land owners.

Disaster Response: We will modernize and upgrade disaster response capabilities given the Philippine situation of having frequent and numerous natural disasters. This involves institution-building rather than relying on the politics of personality. This need is especially urgent given the increasing threats of disasters due to climate change and other natural disasters.

Anti-Red Tape

We will institute measures to simplify all government systems and procedures from the national government departments down to the local government units. Information materials on the procedural guidelines and timelines shall be explicitly posted in every office where transactions are made. All heads of agencies as well as LGUs shall be held accountable for the implementation of this policy.

Reengineering the Bureaucracy

We will ask Congress to enact a 3-year program to reengineer the bureaucracy that at the same time provides for incentives and safeguards for the welfare of our good civil servants. The mandates of each and every government agency shall be reviewed. All government agencies and/or units within agencies must be able to justify their existence in terms of the benefits and outcomes of their services to their respective clients. Employees in non-essential offices and units shall be subjected to an early retirement program but with attractive benefits, and training and assistance for alternative livelihood options, including possible service outsourcing contracts with the agencies where they used to work.

National-Local Coordination on Agency Programs

We shall re-design the way national agencies work so that their services do not stop at the regional levels – which have little perceptible impact to our local communities. We will encourage national-local partnerships for the implementation of national programs and policies. We will encourage national government agencies to design their service delivery programs to complement LGU efforts on similar services and to augment the meager resources of the LGUs.


Use of Information Technologies

We will vigorously pursue e-governance to quickly enhance efficiency in the public sector, increase transparency, widen citizen access to services and ensure accountability. The promise of new technologies is immense. We must bring these technologies to bear on our systems of governance — from upgrading the capacities of our local governments to making our national government more responsive to all constituencies.

There will be enough budget to provide health centers around the country with services capable of providing advice on a wide range of safe and acceptable family planning services.

PRINCIPLE #2: Right to Life and Dignity of the Human Person. Every human person is created in the image and likeness of God. We believe that every human life is sacred from conception to death; that people are more important than things; and that the measure of every institution is whether or not it enhances the life and dignity of the human person.

PLATFORM: MORAL DIMENSION

8. Actively promote responsible parenthood and natural family planning.

Choices by spouses on family planning methods should be respected. However, abortion as a means of either population control or attempts at escaping poverty should be totally discredited and prevented.

At the same time, the attempt of foreign agencies to attribute Philippine and other third world poverty and underdevelopment is outright false and pernicious. It blames the victim countries and people themselves impoverished by “free trade/free market policies” and unequal trade and economic ties for their poverty.

First and foremost, I am definitely against abortion insofar as any population or reproductive health policy is concerned.

The issue of family size is a decision-making issue for individuals in so far as I am concerned. However, I believe that government policy should ensure that the concept of responsible parenthood is understood by many. We can see the impact of our tremendous population: we lack classrooms, we lack public health services, our forest cover is disappearing, we have difficulty feeding our people. In short, because of tremendous population pressures, our government becomes incapable of providing resources for all.

However, I would like to stress that our sizeable population is not a sufficient excuse for our lack of development. Our bad governance has created our stunted economic development and I want to harness our large population in ensuring better national governance.

Nonetheless, as far as I am concerned, there must be a system of incentives that allows people to understand the social ramifications of their personal decisions.

To be specific, if you have two children, then the government will allocate services for your entire family, free schooling, subsidized public health, aid for housing, among others. But if you have three children, you will have to take care of some of the expenses for the third child. You may have to pay extra for public school, for public health.

We cannot have a populist government that cannot carry the burden of social and economic services of the entire country. So it’s important that we get a qualitative population, get our educational standards up, so that in the end we can have a productive people that will be responsible but of course making sure that we follow the precepts of the Church insofar as creating people for the greater glory of God in his own image.

Sustainable Population

Promote and advance the goal of sustainable population.
• Anchor the thrust of achieving sustainable population levels in the pursuit of poverty eradication and enhanced quality of life for all. Experience from other countries show that population stabilizes once a country achieves equitable economic, political, and cultural development.
• Advocate for a balanced approach to the reproductive health bill, balancing the right to life and importance of responsibility vis a vis the right to free choice. Anchor deliberations and debates on scientific conceptions of evolutionary biology and embryology. Responsible education is crucial in all phases and stages of reproductive health. PANGMASA is against abortion..

Reproductive Health : In general I am supportive of the thrust and intent of the Reproductive Heath Bill, but with the following strong conditionalities. The Philippine Constitution forbids abortion and I am in total agreement with this prohibition. The present vague language of the Reproductive Health bill should be rewritten to reflect this broad societal consensus against abortion. In addition, the present language of the bill is too focused on rights of individuals. These should be balanced by language on the sacredness of the reproductive act and the human life that results from it as well as the responsibilities that individuals and couples have in connection with human reproduction. I also do not support the use of artificial contraceptives that do harm to individuals using them as well as jeopardize the health and integrity of future human conception. I will also encourage legislators to make a final round of genuine and respectful consultations with religious groups and other civil society formations to craft an integral language that would acceptable to most, if not all stakeholders. Meanwhile, my government, once elected by the people, will push for a massive campaign against poverty and redress the economic imbalances that ultimately fuel the continued high levels of fertility rates in the Philippines. In short, the reproductive health debate should be seen in the context of the broader unjust socio-economic structures that force human beings, especially the poor, into using questionable reproductive-related practices.

President Joseph Estrada believes that uncontrolled population growth is a source of poverty. An Estrada Administration will support the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill and work towards fulfilling our country’s commitment to the Millennium Development Goal of achieving universal access to reproductive health by 2015.

Eradication of poverty is very close to my heart because in 1998 when I was campaigning, my slogan was "Erap para sa Mahirap" in other words "Estrada for the Poor" and that made me win by the biggest margin ever in the history of all presidential elections. And this did not remain as mere slogan but I translated it into real policies and programs which my administration implemented. During my administration, I gave the biggest budget for social services, and biggest real per capita budget for education. In fact, I'm the only president who imposed no sovereign guarantee on all contracts.

Poverty is a complex issue, it is not merely an economic issue. Poverty also has a lot to do with peace and order situation of the country, if you notice the correlation between peace and order for example in ARMM which has a 60% rate of poverty and some of the other areas in the country. So there's the peace issue connected with it, you got micro-economic issues of employemnt especially in the rural areas. So agricultural modernization is going to be a very important part because 70% of the poverty is in rural areas and more than 60% are based in agriculture, fisheries and other similar industries. And on top of that, we have to have the proper macro-economic framweork for investements to flow in, for other types of services to flow in and then also, we have to have the proper business climate. So these are some of the highlights for the Philippines accoprding to a study that was done on many aspects.

The Philippines is bound to fail in achieving the Millenium Development goal number one on poverty and hunger if traditional politics persist, rearing the ugly head of patronage, illegal transactions and compromises, politics of personality, dynasty, dole-out and utang na loob and graft and corruption. So as a platform, to make headway, we propose to work towards abolishing the pork barrel system, make representation before the Supreme Court to bring about the speedy administration of justice, ensure transparency and public accountability in all government activities and transactions. At this juncture in our nation's life, all especially those who have, must sacrifice. Ang Kapatiran Party will try to lead in not only doing the right things but doing things right.

Poverty is an absence of choice. And without good governance, without focused, fast, friendly, flexible, forward-looking governance we are not gonna be able to make anything happen in this country. The number one thing that we need to know is that before we do anything in this country, we have to change our attitude. I always said, what this country needs is not just change of men but a change in men. None of us here can change our country unless we're ablke to motivate our people to believe in a vision where they themselves can enable and ennoble themselves.

The youth should be encouraged and developed to play the role as catalyst of truly nationalist and progressive change to end the lingering centuries-old feudalistic and colonialist social system that dominates Philippine society today. They should lead the protest against the dehumanizing and impoverishing conditions that burden the Filipino people as a whole. Such campus and community activism and activists should not only be safeguarded in their civil liberties in schools and communities but also promoted as role-actions and role-models in the Philippine quest for genuine change.

PRINCIPLE #1: Belief in One Almighty God. There is only one eternal Supreme Being, Creator of us all. God’s laws are written in every human heart, summarized in the two-fold command: Love God above all, and the others as yourself.
PRINCIPLE #3: Call to Family, Community and Participation. The human person is not only sacred but inherently social. The God-given institutions of marriage and the family are central and serve as the foundations for social life. They must be supported and strengthened, not undermined. Beyond the family, every person has a right to participate in the wider society and a corresponding duty to work for the advancement of the common good and the well-being of all, especially the poor and the weak.

PRINCIPLE # 4: Rights and Responsibilities. As social beings, our relationships are governed by a web of rights and corresponding duties. Every person has a fundamental right to life and a right to those things that allow them to live a decent life – faith and family, food and shelter, health care and housing, education and employment. In society as a whole, those who exercise authority have a duty to respect the fundamental rights of all persons. Likewise, all citizens have a duty to respect human rights and to fulfill their responsibilities to their families, to each other, and to the larger society.

PRINCIPLE #7: Solidarity. Because of the interdependence of all members of the human family around the globe, we have a moral responsibility to commit ourselves to the common good at all levels: in local communities, in our nation, in the community of nations. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they may be.

PLATFORM – SPIRITUAL DIMENSION

1. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

PLATFORM – MORAL DIMENSION

2. Build a nation of character and promote the integral development and total well-being of all Filipinos through values formation on such universal principles as sanctity of human life and dignity of the human person; call to family, community and participation, common good, rights and responsibilities, preferential option for the poor, dignity of work and rights of workers, solidarity, care for God’s creation, consistent ethic of life, good citizenship, and basic political education.

3. Discourage the glorification of sex and violence, pornography, dishonesty, vice, materialism and hedonism, and replace them with structures of virtue, peace, responsibility and achievement.

4. Abolish all forms of gambling.

7. End violence in school fraternities and other institutions, and regulate sports whose main aim is to inflict physical harm or violence on the opponent.

9. Encourage media to foster values that contribute to the formation of a national commitment that is maka-Diyos, maka-buhay, maka-bayan, at maka-tao.

PLATFORM – ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

32. c) enhance investments in human resource development, especially by strengthening education in the sciences, mathematics, engineering and English;

Bangon Pilipinas recognizes the vital role of the youth in nation-building. Thus, Bro. Eddie will immediately certify as urgent the legislative proposals on the review and amendment of the Youth in Nation-Building Act (Republic Act 8044).

Other programs for the youth:
(1) Inclusion of a Youth Sector Representative in the Cabinet
(2) Strengthening of existing Local Youth Development Councils and support to proposals to create one where there are no existing Councils yet