Criteria for voting

by Ducky Paredes
from MALAYA

‘We need people who love this country more than they love themselves.’ — Ducky Paredes

IBON Foundation and Pagbabago! People’s Movement for Change held a forum at UP Diliman in which they proposed 12 specific issues as criteria to be used in choosing who to vote for on May 10, 2010. This is what they came up with and my personal comments on each:

1) On corruption. Will they seek the truth behind the “Hello, Garci”, NBN-ZTE and fertilizer scam to name a few of the anomalies that involved the president?

My take on this is that what is more important is not the prosecution of the current president but that of making sure that the next president will not be even onlv slightly less corrupt, as corrupt or – heaven help us! – even more corrupt than the present one.

Ask yourself this: Did the candidate to whom you are inclined to give the presidency, use his government position to enrich himself with outright bribes or, conversely, did he use his position to help his family, friends or his own businesses get better deals from government? If he did, you should know what to expect if you give him any position in government – from councilor to congressman, senator or even president. Why will he change the way that he used government position before just because he will now be president? Think on that.

We should be totally against corruption; but what is more important is stopping the practice by not electing any more corrupt persons into positions of real power. Certainly, that beats just dumping on Gloria and Mike.

Let’s do that, too; but, the more important part of stopping corruption is not elevating those who are clearly corrupt into positions where they will become even more corrupt.

2) Human rights. Will they end the policies giving rise to human rights violations?

I have no problem with that; but, again, electing the right president will go a long way in dispelling the culture of impunity that gives rise to human rights violations (HRV). That culture is what convinces dumbos like Junior Ampatuan that he can kill so many people, hide their bodies and vehicles by burying them with the use of a backhoe and expect to get away with it.

That culture comes from having a president who wants total control over politics to the point of cheating to win elections. A mere promise of respecting human rights is not enough. We need to choose someone totally committed to defending everyone’s human rights because he has no use for a society that tolerates that culture of impunity, which is the natural result of ignoring the human rights of others.

3) National patrimony. Will they protect the national patrimony and environment by opposing large-scale, export-oriented, and foreign-led extractive industries such as mining and oil exploration?

I am okay with that, but I am not totally against extractive industries – whether foreign or local. Certainly, earning dollars through export industries is a better deal than relying on OFW dollars to keep our economy afloat.

4) Agrarian Reform and agricultural development. Will they work for genuine agrarian reform anchored on the distribution of land to the tillers?

What ought to be more important in land reform is not the famers’ individual ownership of small plots of land but agricultural production. What is the use of agricultural land that has no yield or one so low that it cannot support a family? We need to get our farms, even the smallest ones productive; otherwise, all you are doing is dividing up productive farms and transforming them into non-productive assets.

5) Nationalist Economic Policies. Will they work for national industrialization?

We need industrialization because we have to provide jobs for our very large population. Having a lot of Pinoys is a good thing as long as we have jobs for them. We don’t. This is why so many are working elsewhere in the world and helping their host economies grow. Then, they send us their excess funds, which fuel our economy with dollars that our economy did not earn. We are in a bad economic situation because we lack industry and have no manufacturing or any other jobs to give.

6) Jobs and wages. Will they promote job creation and uphold job security by protecting domestic industry?

Job creation, yes. Job security? As long as there are enough jobs for everyone, job security no longer matters as much since he can always get another job.

7) Social Services. Will they stop the commercialization and privatization of education and health services?

I am okay on this. In fact, we ought to improve the quality and availability of both education and health services even if it means putting more of our money in education (as mandated by the Constitution) and in health services.

8 ) Taxes. Are they in favor of scrapping the reformed value added tax (RVAT) and other regressive taxes?

I am not in favor of scrapping these taxes. We cannot do a lot of the things that need to be done without the money we need to do these things. And, the money comes only from taxes that we pay.

9) Foreign policy. Will they work for an independent foreign policy?

Definitely; but having an independent foreign policy should not mean being necessarily anti-American.

10) Peace process. Will they pursue the peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines?

Definitely. We are one nation. We are all Filipinos. Let us talk peace instead of waging war among ourselves

11) Gender. Will they uphold gender equality?

They should, with the understanding that many of the supposedly weaker sex will turn out to be better, stronger and more reliable than the men.

12) National culture. Will they promote national culture?

Except that there are things that pass for national culture which are not really part of what ought to be national culture. We sometimes tend to be foolishly close to being Talibanic when it comes to held beliefs and history.

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We ought to choose those we elect (for any position) with better care. This is the best assurance that we are on the way to getting the country that we really want. Choosing candidates because they look good, sound good or spend good is why we have not had much good governance. We need people who love this country more than they love themselves.

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