I am glad that the Management Association of the Philippines Agribusiness and Countryside Development (MAP-ABCD) Foundation has remained focused on policy advocacy. I am also happy that you are interested in some of my priority measures. I can assure you that the House Bills you have assigned for me to discuss this noon would really impact on countryside development.

Clean elections – foundation of good governance

Without much ado let me start with a measure that appears to be unrelated to agribusiness or countryside development. I refer to House Bill No. 1882, now under substitute bill numbered 3292, that seeks to increase penalties for election offenses attended by violence, coercion, intimidation, force or threats, and for other election offenses as well.

Being involved in policy advocacy and aware of your corporate social responsibility you must carefully choose progressive and development-oriented policies that your group will support and endorse. You must be sorely disappointed if you are faced with questionable policies that are not people-centered much less contribute to the development of the poor in the countryside. But how do we ensure that Congress, the highest policymaking body in the land, approves or delivers relevant and effective policies, or that government as a whole is truly of, by and for the people?

I believe the answer to this question largely lies in the quality of elections that the country holds. Elections must be free, clean, honest and peaceful so as to afford the electorate the opportunity to elect into office the candidates of their choice. Thus, House Bill No. 3292 provides stiffer penalties for election offenses. The bill provides that “any person found guilty of an election offense or prohibited act under Sections 261 and 262 in relation to Section 264 of the Omnibus Election Code of the Philippines, as amended, and Section 45 of Republic Act No. 8189, which by its nature is committed through or with violence, coercion, intimidation, force or threats, or where the commission of which is attended by such violence, coercion, intimidation, force or threats, shall be punished with imprisonment of not less than twelve (12) years and one (1) day but not more than twenty (20) years with the accessory penalties of perpetual disqualification to hold office and deprivation of the right of suffrage…the political party, political coalition, party-list or aggrupation organized for political purpose to which the guilty party is a member shall be sentenced to pay a fine of Five hundred thousand pesos (P500,000.00) as part of the civil liability in connection with the election offense.”

The bill also increases the penalty for other election offenses from imprisonment of not less than one (1) year but not more than six (6) years to not less than six (6) years and one (1) day but not more than twelve (12) years and shall be sentenced to suffer perpetual disqualification to hold public office and deprivation of the right of suffrage.

Additionally, the measure imposes the maximum penalty on “any officer or employee of the Commission on Elections, or any officer, employee or member of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, or any police force, special forces, home defense forces, barangay self-defense units and all other paramilitary units that now exist found guilty of any election offense.” Also liable are the Board of Election Inspectors, the members of the Board of Canvassers and/or officials of the Commission on Elections who aid, assist or participate, directly in the commission of election offenses enumerated under Section 263 of the Omnibus Election Code.

As far as your stakeholders are concerned, electoral reforms on the whole will allow them to elect progressive advocates of agribusiness and countryside development as their representatives in government, more particularly in Congress to whom they can entrust their legislative agenda. History has shown that many times the people’s choices are not sworn to office because fraud, violence or force attended the electoral processes from registration of voters to the canvassing of votes even up to he proclamation of winners and the resolution of election protests.

Needless to stress, good governance and effective policymaking and implementation begin with clean, fair, honest and peaceful elections.

Huge debt service and exploding population

A set of government policies, strategies and programs that could either promote or hinder delivery of social services and sustain or mitigate development concerns the country’s domestic and external debts. In this regard, I filed anew the Joint Resolution creating a Congressional Commission to review and assess the debt policies, strategies and programs of the Philippines. The Commission is also tasked to conduct a public audit of all loans acquired, including assumed and contingent liabilities, validate the utilization of loan proceeds, and the payments made thereon, and recommend policies and strategies to reduce debt service. The bicameral body is also mandated to recommend institutional and infrastructural measures to ensure sound fiscal and monetary status of the national government principally through effective debt management.

The Commission shall be composed of the Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Finance and the Chairperson of the House Committee on Appropriations, six (6) members of the Senate and six (6) members of the House of Representatives to be designated by the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, respectively; provided, that two of the six members coming from each House shall represent the minority.

I first introduced this Joint Resolution in the 13th Congress. In fact it was the very first measure that was approved on third and final reading by the House of Representatives in the previous Congress and was subsequently transmitted to the Senate. Lamentably, the Senate Committee on Finance did not act on it because its Chairman then sponsored his own version of a debt management strategy that would continue to allow the executive through our traditional financial managers to dominate and control decision-making and implementation of the country’s debt policies. This is contrary to my proposal that would transfer supremacy over these policies to the bicameral Congressional Debt Commission to which it rightly belongs.

As Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, I have pursued some of my steadfast advocacies in the crafting of the General Appropriations Bill. Two of these are the deflation of debt service and the comprehensive management of the population growth rate, which is presently 2.36% per annum and among the highest in the world.

I have repeatedly said in many fora that the twin problems besetting the country are both escalating: the spiraling debt service payments both for principal amortizations and interest payments that have a combined total of P598.188 billion for 2008 (P269.847-B for interest payments and P328.341-B for principal amortization) or 48.77% of the total national and off budget expenditures (22% for interest payment and 26.77% for principal amortization), and the exploding population which now totals almost 90 million Filipinos, ranking the Philippines as the 12th most populous country in the world.

For the first time in almost a decade, the debt service allocation for interest payments was cut, paving the way for augmenting the appropriations for (1) health, (2) education, (3) agriculture, (4) social welfare, (5) infrastructure, (6) local governance and development, (7) justice and the judiciary, (8) labor and employment, (9) energization, (10) environment, and (11) public safety and security, among others.

The reduction in interest payments for foreign loans totaled P25.9 billion and consisted of the following:

• P15.9 billion corresponding to savings as a result of the appreciation of the peso with the exchange rate recomputed at P41.00 to a dollar from a high assumption of 48:1 in the NEP or a P7.00 differential. (Savings of P2.272 billion is generated for every peso appreciation);
• P5 billion in suspension of interest payments for loans which are challenged as fraudulent, tainted and/or useless pending the Executive’s renegotiation of the loans or their eventual condonation; and
• P5 billion in premature allocations for interest payments for program loans and bond issuances still in the pipeline.

In addition to the debt service cut, proposed appropriations for slow-moving projects, excess allocations and other miscellaneous allotments totaling P12.638 billion were likewise slashed.

The total cuts amounting to P38.5 billion were realigned to the budgets of the following agencies and programs, among others, to increase their respective appropriations as originally proposed in the NEP:

• Basic and higher education was increased by P4.829 billion for a total new appropriations of P158.602 billion;
• Health was increased by P5.790 billion for a total new appropriations of P25.847 billion;
• Agriculture was increased by P1.872 billion for a total new appropriations of P29.161 billion;
• Infrastructure was increased by P12.982 billion for a total new appropriations of P94.729 billion ;
• Justice and the judiciary was increased by P1.236 billion for a total combined new appropriations of P16.570 billion;
• Social welfare and development was increased by P.165 billion for a total new appropriations of P4.848 billion;
• Local governance and development was increased by P3.500 billion for a total new appropriations of P16.253 billion;
• Public safety and security was increased by P.859 billion for a total new appropriations of P53.242 billion;
• Labor and employment was increased by P.236 billion for a total new appropriations of P6.272 billion;
• Energization was increased by P.600 billion for a total new appropriations of P.922 billion;
• Environmental protection was increased by P.184 billion for a total new appropriations of P8.118 billion; and
• Sports development was increased by P.059 billion for a total new appropriations of P.360 billion;

Aside from infrastructure development, the health, education and agriculture sectors were the biggest beneficiaries of the bicameral augmentation with respective increases of P5.790 billion, P4.829 billion and P1.872 billion.

Sports development got the highest percentage increase (19.6% or P59 million) to propel Filipino athletes in their quest for gold in the Beijing Olympics in August 2008.

The country’s inordinate population growth rate impedes and constricts our overall socio-economic growth. The problem of a huge population adversely impacts on all indicators of human development like education, health, shelter, employment, food security, and even the environment. Unfortunately, both the Executive and the Legislature in the past have merely given lip service to population management. There is no comprehensive and national policy to contain the population growth rate and the budget for reproductive health has always been minuscule. For the first time in the General Appropriations Act of 2007, a budget of P180 million was allocated for artificial family planning which could be accessed by local government units since the national government has been prohibited by the Executive to procure and disseminate reproductive health products like condoms, contraceptive pills and injectables. Regrettably, it was only on February 12, 2008 that this amount of P180 million had been released through a belated Special Allotment Release Order (SARO). To compound the problem, even the Commission on Population was not aware of this tardy release to the Department of Health.

For this year, through the initiative of the House of Representatives with the concurrence of the Senate, a total of P2.0 billion has been allocated in the GAA for reproductive health and family planning. P800 million is allocated for reproductive health and family planning seminars to be conducted nationwide by the DOH in coordination with LGUs to enable women and couples to make an informed choice regarding the family planning method that is best suited to their needs, personal convictions and religious beliefs. The remaining P1.2 billion is appropriated for access to modern natural and artificial family planning methods and devices.

CARP and provision of post-harvest facilities

The fact that 45%-70% of the population or around 30 million depend on agriculture and related industries should push both government and the private sector to pump prime agriculture and agri-related infrastructure.

The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), a social justice and poverty alleviation program so pivotal to rural development, must not be abandoned. Hence, I filed House Bill No. 328 that seeks to sustain the implementation of CARP. The bill extends the implementation of the land acquisition and distribution component of CARP for five (5) years from 2008 up to 2013. It allocates one hundred billion pesos (P100-B) for land acquisition and distribution and for the other funding requirements of CARP. It also increases the funding share of support services from the present 25% under R.A. 7905 to 40% of all appropriations for agrarian reform. To ensure transparent, responsible and responsive spending of the agrarian reform fund, the bill requires the Department of Agrarian Reform to submit to Congress an Annual Congress Report on the implementation of CARP.

To further promote sound agricultural development, the incomes of farmers must be raised to enable them to satisfy their material needs and to enhance their self-esteem. Toward this end, I authored House Bill No. 330 that seeks to allow farmers to own post-harvest facilities like warehouses, rice mills and transport facilities to be provided and advanced by government and subsequently acquired by farmers’ cooperatives at cost to be amortized for 25 years. Should the bill become a law, palay and rice subsidies will no longer be necessary thus affording government budgetary relief.

The amount of one billion pesos (P1-B) is initially appropriated for the program. The Department of Public Works and Highways in consultation with the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Agrarian Reform, and farmers’ cooperatives shall construct warehouses and rice mills in every rice producing municipality in the Philippines; provided that, in the initial phase of the program, every district with at least one rice producing municipality shall be the beneficiary of at least one warehouse and one rice mill. The Department of Trade and Industry, in consultation with the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Agrarian Reform and farmers’ cooperatives shall provide the equipment and machinery necessary to operate these warehouses and rice mills as well as the necessary transport facilities.

Youth empowerment for national development

While it is true that land acquisition and support services more particularly provision of post-harvest facilities are essential in raising farmers’ incomes, development of the skills and knowledge of the farmers themselves is equally if not more important. As Professor Frederick Harbison succinctly underscored:

Human resources…constitute the ultimate basis for wealth of nations. Capital and natural resources are passive factors of production; human beings are the active agents who accumulate capital, exploit natural resources, build social, economic and political organizations, and carry forward national development. Clearly, a country which is unable to develop the skills and knowledge of its people and to utilize them, effectively in the national economy will be unable to develop anything else.

In recognition of the primacy of human resources in national development, I have been a staunch advocate of prioritizing education not only in the national budget but as a time-tested basic tool of empowerment. I have consistently authored the Magna Carta of Students bill in all the five Congresses of which I am a member. Among the salient features of the bill are:

• Student representation in the governing board and other policymaking bodies of the school;
• Creation of a multi-sector School Fee Board;
• Right to organize and run an autonomous student council or government;
• Right to admission without undue discrimination;
• Right to due process in disciplinary proceedings; and
• Right to adequate academic and welfare services consistent with the financial capacity of the school.

I believe that after a gestation period of almost two decades during which all affected sectors were adequately heard and consulted, the bill should finally see the light of day in the 14th Congress for the following compelling reasons:

• In the era of globalization and concomitant liberalization and deregulation, the youth along with the other sectors of society must be effectively empowered to enable them to actively participate in the making of policy decisions that affect their sector and the nation as a whole.
• Democratic consultations and dialogues between and among the different sectors of the school community need to be institutionalized. Unilateral formulation and imposition of student related school policies especially on the matter of tuition and other school fees and undue restrictions on student rights must end in order to prevent student protests and unrest that sometimes become violent.
• Responsible exercise of rights must be developed on the campus toward the promotion of peace and harmony among all sectors of the education community.

The proposed Magna Carta of Students applies to students in the secondary, post-secondary, tertiary, graduate and post-graduate levels.

Success to secondary education through the Open High School System

To many Filipino families more particularly in the countryside, having their children graduate from high school is a hard to realize dream. To make secondary education more accessible to poor families, I am pushing for the institutionalization of the Open High School System in the country. The Open High School System as provided under House Bill No. 331 delivers educational services to high school students utilizing print, radio, television and computer-based communications, satellite broadcasting, teleconferencing, and other multimedia learning and teaching technologies that allow students to study on their own without having to regularly attend classes in conventional classrooms. The system shall apply to public secondary educational institutions with existing distance learning programs and all other such institutions that shall later be authorized as qualified implementers of the system. Moreover, all existing programs and projects of the Bureau of Secondary Education regarding dropout intervention and poverty alleviation through education shall be part of the system.

House Bill No. 331 also requires the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) to sign a memorandum of agreement (MOA) that will define the role of Local Government Units (LGUs) in the operation of the system to ensure maximum collaboration between DepEd and the LGUs toward the success of the system.

I am optimistic that through this alternative learning system, the youth, more particularly those who work in the farms or live in far-flung areas or in communities affected by armed conflict, including adults will be able to overcome geographical, socio-economic and/or physical constraints to their completion of secondary education.

Healthier, more productive labor force

Aside from these constraints, another impediment to education in the public schools concerns the health status of the students, teachers and non-teaching personnel as well.

It is indisputable that the country’s economic productivity is considerably affected by the health condition of its labor force. In the same vein, the learning capacities of students including their acquisition of knowledge and skills that are essential in the production of goods and services are likewise greatly influenced by their health, not to mention the health of their teachers of whom suffer from tuberculosis.

To instill health consciousness among Filipinos, government commits to “…fully integrate our health care system with the school system with preventive health care, personal hygiene and nutrition education being pursued as active programs in basic education.” Consistent with this pronouncement, I filed anew for the second time a bill that was originally authored by my daughter Krisel Lagman-Luistro in the 12th Congress. Now House Bill No. 334, the proposed legislation seeks to modernize the School Health and Nutrition Program (SHNP) of the DepEd. The bill gears toward the following objectives:

• To provide a comprehensive preventive health care to schoolchildren and teachers in the elementary and secondary levels of education and to non-teaching personnel of the DepEd;
• To inculcate health and nutrition values and behavior and encourage healthy lifestyles among the school populace;
• To encourage parents to provide their children with proper health care and to perform effective parenting to prevent drug abuse;
• To develop effective linkages between the school and community for better school health;
• To strengthen the Health and Nutrition Center in the management of the Program; and
• To establish and maintain adequate health and sanitation facilities like school clinics, canteens, water supply, sanitary toilets and garbage disposal in the schools.

Toward the attainment of these objectives, House Bill No. 334 prioritizes the:

• Recruitment of school health and nutrition personnel to attain the ratio of one personnel to 2,000 pupils/teachers over a five-year period;
• Upgrading of the salary of health and nutrition personnel to be at par with counterparts in other Departments as well as the full implementation of the benefits of the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers;
• Provision of equipment, medical and dental supplies and medicines; and
• Health examination of all Grade I entrants and provision of supplementary feeding (breakfast and/or milk) to Grade I pupils and nutritionally deprived schoolchildren.

The various measures I have discussed are modest steps to address the growing pains of national development. I count on the business sector’s cogent corporate social responsibility to pave the way to a meaningful and truly efficacious private sector-government partnership toward countryside and more broadly national development.

Maraming salamat.