What Will Manny Do?

Post date: Oct 20, 2009 4:47:51 AM

So what does Manny intend to do? Outlined below is his initial legislative agenda - what he intends to do if elected as Senator.

Initial Legislative Agenda

Along with my colleagues, I shall pursue, among others, a three-point agenda within the context and in pursuance of the Ang Kapatiran Party’s Platform and Principles:

• To restore the frazzled bonds of trust between the people and the government at every level of the political structure;
• To induce greater participation in government affairs so that the people themselves may put a stop to the cycle of corruption and betrayal of public trust which begins in their community/barangay.
• To pursue the ideal of a government of the people, by the people and for the people starting at the grassroots, one that exemplifies true democracy, people-powered democracy.
• Accordingly, starting on the first working day, I shall initiate action aimed at the following issues:

FIRST, the Constitution: all provisions that remain neglected must now be addressed and resolved – especially the prohibition on family dynasties, which is the bane of a young society like ours. Anyone who blocks this move must be made answerable;

SECOND, High-level Corruption: a comprehensive audit of both houses of Congress must be undertaken -- with particular focus on waste, fraud or abuse, its findings and recommendations to be widely circulated, then discussed by every Barangay Assembly so that every Filipino may know how his taxes are managed and be able to propose steps ensure greater transparency and effective accountability;

THIRD, Responsibility and Public Trust: a kagawad, congressman, or executive who takes a position contrary to his constituents’ must state his reasons for doing so before a meeting convened for the purpose in his district, or face a recall initiative;

FOURTH, Fiscal Discipline: appropriations released or expended with the intervention or representation of a senator or a congressmen must be formally and publicly accounted for, with reports made available to the constituency and the media; and

FIFTH, the Bureaucracy: a review and update of the Civil Service Code shall be undertaken with the view to boosting the bureaucracy’s morale and efficiency, liberating it from the clutches of corrupt manipulators and oligarchs or trapos.

Thereafter, I shall propose specific legislation aimed at empowering the people so that every community shall have control over every aspect of their lives – their livelihood, their politics, their environment, and their culture -- as follows:

1. A bill mandating the full activation of the barangay as our basic political unit – being a government with a unique system of governance, a corporation in its own right, and an economy with land, labor and capital within it control. This government-corporation-economy needs to be managed by its own stakeholders in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity and autonomy. Doing so will transform the barangay into an engine of socioeconomic growth, each one contributing to the overall progress of the nation, each barangay’s gross domestic product factored into the GDP or the GNP.

2. A bill mandating full disclosure of revenues and expenditures by every local government unit. In each community, it shall be mandatory for the Barangay Assembly to convene quarterly with a question hour so that its citizens may inquire into any aspect of its governance, its finances, and its economy, and thus be able to contribute ideas for its development as well as for enhancing its quality of life.

3. A bill affirming security, peace, order, and crime prevention as a collective responsibility of the community, necessitating compliance with the requirement to maintain an up-to-date roster of residents along with data on their occupation and minimum basic needs based on periodic surveys. Thus will every Filipino be accounted for, his needs factored into his community’s planning, development, and welfare.

4. A bill requiring the community to prepare and implement its Barangay Development Plan in accordance with the Local Government Code; said plan to be integrated into the plans of the next higher unit up to the national level. This will institutionalize the bottom-up approach to development planning and ensure that no community is overlooked or left out in the allocation of the nation’s resources. It will then make it unnecessary to resort to pork barrel-politics and its attendant abuse and corruption.

5. A bill to abolish the pork barrel, giving such funds directly to the Local Development Councils, so that prioritizing local needs shall inure to the community instead of to congressmen and senators who are already represented therein.

6. A bill making it compulsory for all youth 15-21 years old to register with the katipunan ng kabataan in their barangay, providing incentives for active participation in its operations. Purpose: So that involvement in their community becomes integral to growing up, to schooling, and to training for sovereign citizenship. Their energy and creativity, applying school-acquired learning to actual-life situations and communitarian pursuits, are essential to the bottom-up approach in nation-building.

7. A bill establishing a College Student Loan Program to be funded partly by government financial institutions. Purpose: to provide equal opportunity to those that cannot afford the costs of higher education, payable starting one year after graduation. This will maximize the potential of the nation’s pool of youthful talent. Similarly, a bill allowing parents or guardians of primary and secondary pupils in non-government schools to avail of Education Loans, payable in monthly installments, to ensure that poor families are not deprived of quality education by reason of poverty or lack of opportunity.

8. A bill requiring every barangay to recognize and convene the retirees/senior citizens residing in their jurisdiction. Purpose: So the community may tap into their expertise, ideas, and experience as well as benefit from their resources for its own development. (They are the most experienced sector of our society but are underutilized.)

For Mindanao and other depressed regions,

9. My mission shall be to bring its infrastructure and public facilities at par if not better than the rest of the country.

10. I shall vigorously explore livelihood and employment schemes with government and private entities aimed at developing every barangay -- promoting such modest efforts as backyard gardens, waterside tourism activities along riverbanks and coastal areas, trail-ways and walkways along scenic settings in upstream and hinterland locations, cleaning up the countryside to enhance environment and overall quality of life, reforesting logged-over hills, alternative livelihood to curtail excessive exploitation of mining areas, and the like.

11. I shall encourage every barangay to capitalize on its corporate nature by investing its revenues on profitable projects, including joint ventures with other barangays or the private sector, arranging for technical and financial assistance therefor, and generally maximizing the potential of vacant or idle lands and overall productivity.

12. I shall work closely with local governments so they can marshal local resources that enable their communities to cope with the needy or unemployed, to make families productive, and to make of the barangays a thriving corporation and economy instead of merely serve as a conduit or dispenser of public funds and political patronage.

13 I shall call on and assist barangay residents to organize themselves into communitarian cooperatives and credit unions in order to promote capital formation and savings at the grassroots.

14. Finally, I shall adopt an open-door policy whereby any constituent or group of constituents may submit a proposal, petition, suggestion, or grievance and be assured of prompt attention or action.

15. This written commitment supplements Ang Kapatiran Party’s published principles and platform as embodied in its “Passport to a New Philippines.” It is our earnest of resolve to serve unselfishly and with dedication to the Common Good.

It is a detailed agenda with no fine print. We offer it unilaterally in the face of so much evasion and posturing by trapos, ambitious power-seekers, and power-drunk oligarchs who refuse to yield control of politics and society – which they have brought to the brink of anarchy and perdition.