2016

We may just be starting the year 2015 but Filipino politicians have their plans laid out for 2016, the year we will hold national and local elections.

Notice too the rush, among politicians, to get some projects going. Sometimes we shake our heads and comment, referring to the projects: “too little, too late,” or that the projects are only for “show.”

We too are at fault for not pushing a more concrete and clear agenda for the country, or for our cities, towns, barangays, even as the politicians pay back their supporters—big business corporations, religious groups, even foreign governments—who have long been setting the agenda for the country. (Note that when politicians don’t act on certain issues they may in fact be paying back certain supporters.)

For starters, I drew up my own “Big 9” wish list for causes to push. There are certainly many more causes to include, but these are what I feel are the most vital for the country’s future, and yet the most neglected.

The causes are intentionally generic, but still specific enough to negotiate with candidates. It’s too easy, too safe for candidates to proclaim that they will alleviate poverty, fight corruption, conserve the environment, defend women’s rights. Let’s get candidates to be more concrete on how to talk the talk and walk the walk.

For the issues on the agenda, formulate specific questions to present to our candidates. For incumbent legislators and officials, this year is the last chance to pressure them to deliver. When the campaign period starts, check their track record and ask what they intend to do. Check if they know of existing laws, and if they understand the links between these issues and the bigger issues of poverty alleviation and national development.

Big 9

Taxes. Even the Bible isn’t kind about tax collectors. Unjust taxes have always been volatile, the stuff that makes for social revolts. The Inquirer’s Talk of the Town has had two (Dec. 28 and Aug. 24, 2014) incisive pieces about our problematic taxation system. Both articles tend to agree that the taxation system favors the rich, and works against the middle class and the small and medium-scale entrepreneurs. One of the articles’ titles summarizes what we need: a simpler, equitable and efficient tax system. Read the articles to come up with issues to present to our candidates around income taxes, sales taxes, and even the collection system, which has been a greater burden for low- and middle-income taxpayers, as well as the self-employed and professionals.

Public transport. Billions of pesos are lost each year in terms of labor productivity because people show up for work totally exhausted from the horrors of public transport. More is lost, too, in terms of gasoline and pollution, as people use private transport because the public system is so inefficient. We have failed, miserably, to provide affordable, comfortable and efficient public transport, from the LRT and MRT atrocities in Metro Manila down to the chaotic franchising system for buses, FXs, tricycles and jeepneys in all our cities and municipalities. Ask our candidates if theyíve heard of successful options tested in other countries, such as the Bus Rail Transit systems, bike-friendly lanes and many more.

Education for all. Rightly so, there is much focus on the K-to-12 system that will be fully operational by 2018, but the educational reforms will lose meaning if it means more young people dropping out. Get politicians to commit to reducing to zero the number of out-of-school youth and street children. (Even the UP Diliman campus has these street children who come close to extortion, and I can tell you there are all kinds of bureaucratic requirements that prevent us from banning them.) Get politicians to commit as well to ALS (alternative learning systems) and distance education, ways for dropouts to get a high school or even college diploma. Local governments can go a long way to getting these services and programs to their constituents.

Health for all. As of June 2014, the government had collected some P80 billion from sin taxes imposed on alcohol and tobacco products. That money should be going into health education and health financing, including getting PhilHealth coverage for all. Over the Christmas break I still had to respond to requests for assistance from university staff grappling with hospital bills and, in one case, getting a death certificate signed because the family couldn’t settle their accounts.

Consumer protection. I think of the last lines of The Lord’s Prayer whenever I see our billboards: Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Hard-earned money is being spent for defective and useless products because of deceptive advertising and marketing strategies. There are all kinds of consumer protection laws, including one just signed a few months ago to cover “lemon” motor vehicles. Sorely lacking is a law to protect consumers from deceptive condominium and real estate deals. Get local officials to commit to enforcing existing laws in their jurisdictions like banishing pushy scam marketers from malls, forbidding “no return, no exchange” policies, and requiring proof for every advertising claim. Oh, and can we get candidates to promise not to appear in commercials?

Food security. Here’s a term that’s rarely used but covers so many concerns. We’re talking here about the loss of our farmlands, about young people not interested in agriculture and professions related to food production and processing, about pesticides wasting away the land and the crops planted on the land. We’re talking here of agrarian reform, and farm-to-market roads. The bottom line, amid the proliferation of culinary schools and fine dining restaurants, is that we’re moving toward more hunger and malnutrition.

Senior citizens. The elderly can continue to be productive, if we keep them healthy and help them to continue to be independent. I speak as a senior citizen, caring for two very senior citizen parents. I see too many continuing loopholes in our Senior Citizens Act and feel society makes life more difficult for us in terms of accessibility to services, and, quite simply, getting things done. Crossing the street, using those ridiculous U-turn slots, and much, much more. Really now, if Xiaomi, a Chinese cell phone company, now has a senior mode option (large prints and easier navigation), why can’t banks and government agencies do that for their forms?

Sports and recreation. Enough of cockfighting arenas, basketball half-courts and amusement parks. Ask, no, demand for the restoration of town plazas and the development of more parks, playgrounds, plant and animal protected areas (not zoos, please) and public sports venues and facilities. Get politicians to commit as well to school sports programs, developing the national sports teams and, in Manila, doing something about the Rizal Memorial Stadium.

Reclaiming our heritage. Inquirer’s last issue for 2014 had a front-page photo of the Rizal Monument with the “photobomb” in the background—that high-rise Torre de Manila on Taft Avenue marring Luneta’s historic landscape. Weíve had a National Heritage Act since 2010, with extensive provisions waiting to be better implemented to safeguard cultural resources (including languages), from the national level down to local governments. Ask our politicians to pour in more money for heritage programs, including training more professionals in this area. I’m perhaps biased as an anthropologist, but I believe that a country that destroys its past, no matter how good our economic and social development programs might be, will have no sustainable future.

(E-mail: mtan@inquirer.com.ph)