by PAGBABAGO! People’s Movement for Change
(Photo credit: PoliticalArena.com)
The people’s candidates must be PATRIOTIC, DEMOCRATIC, and PRO-PEOPLE.
With every candidate asserting that he or she is for change or reforms, there is a need for a set of criteria with which to objectively measure these claims.
The following 12 questions aim to help guide voters by providing a comprehensive and tangible set of indicators. By examining a candidate’s platform and track record in relation to concrete people’s issues, these questions could help determine if a candidate is indeed patriotic, democratic, and pro-people – the most important traits that a political leader must have if he or she is to bring meaningful change or reforms in government and society.
The 12 main questions we ask of each national candidate:
- Will you work to establish the truth behind the “Hello, Garci”, NBN-ZTE scam, fertilizer scam and other anomalies by way of independent and highly credible bodies? Will you pave the way for the prosecution of Mrs. Arroyo, her relatives, her close allies and other government officials who have been involved in large-scale graft and corruption, electoral fraud and their cover-up?
- Will you uphold human rights and end policies giving rise to human rights violations such as extra-judicial killing, torture, and enforced disappearance? Will you stop the persecution of social activists, dissidents and critics of government? Will you punish perpetrators of human rights violations?
- Will you protect the national patrimony and environment by opposing large-scale, export-oriented, and foreign-led extractive industries such as mining and oil exploration? Will you uphold the rights to ancestral land and to self-determination of indigenous peoples and national minorities?
- Will you work for genuine agrarian reform anchored on the distribution of land to the tillers? Are you in favour of scrapping schemes such as the stock-distribution option, land use conversion and others that have allowed evasion of land reform and endangered food security?
- Will you work for national industrialization? Will you reverse policies of liberalization, privatization and deregulation? Will you keep economic protectionist measures, restrictions on foreign ownership of land in the Philippine Constitution?
- Will you promote job creation and uphold job security by protecting domestic industry? Do you support the demand of workers for an increase in minimum wage? Will you reverse labor export and labor contractualization policies to protect working people’s rights and promote their welfare?
- Will you stop the commercialization and privatization of education and health services? Will you put an end to automatic debt servicing? Will you prioritize spending government funds for needed economic programs and social services over debt servicing and military spending?
- Are you in favour of scrapping the reformed value added tax (RVAT) and other regressive taxes that unduly burden the people? Will you work for a progressive taxation program?
- Will you work for an independent foreign policy? Are you in favor of the abrogation of the Visiting Forces Agreement and other unequal military agreements? Will you put a stop to US and other troops’ permanent presence on Philippine territory? Will you keep the anti-bases and nuke-free provisions in the Philippine Constitution?
- Are you in favour of stopping government’s “all-out war” policy as the means of resolving armed conflicts and instead pursue the current peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front?
- Do you uphold gender equality? Do you favor expanding opportunities for women, gays and lesbians in the exercise their political, economic, cultural and other rights?
- Will you promote a culture that emphasizes nationalism and service to the people? Will you uphold Filipino as the national language?
(Editor’s Note: Photos of presidential candidates belong to PoliticalArena.com)