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News
May 19, 2009
Civil society
calls legislators to fast-track
bills for people's welfare before
campaigning
for elections
The Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI),
a consortium of 60 nongovernment
organizations which initiated
legislator-civil society partnership for
better allocation for social
development, called on legislators to
first concentrate on fast tracking the
passage of laws to empower the people
before concentrating on preparations for
the 2010 elections.
“There are many bills that will greatly
improve the lives of teachers, of health
workers, of millions of families living
in poverty but all these bills are
sitting on the shelves as the elections
draw nearer,” said former national
treasurer Leonor Magtolis Briones, lead
convenor of Social Watch Philippines,
which organized the ABI.
The ABI has been constantly holding
dialogues with Senators and Congressmen
for the passage of bills for education,
health, environment, agriculture and
people’s participation in the budget
process. One of the bills that civil
society groups had been painstakingly
working for is the bill titled “Act
Institutionalizing the Active
Participation of Bona Fide People’s
Organizations and Non-Government
Organizations in the Annual National
Budget Hearings in Congress and Budget
Deliberations in Local Government Units,
And Providing Effective Mechanisms
Therefore”.
“We hope that the Congress and Senate
will immediately approve the law
institutionalizing people’s
participation in the budget process. The
ABI and partner legislators Cong. Erin
Tanada and Cong. Teofisto Guingona III
had been pushing for the passage of such
law for already three years. Senator
Panfilo Lacson is pushing for a similar
bill in Senate,” Briones said. She
explained that SWP was the nongovernment
organization that was invited by the
House Committee on People’s
Participation to officially submit its
inputs to the Bill.
“We will conduct a signature campaign on
this bill in Senate and House of
Representatives so that many legislators
will be co-sponsors of this bill. We
call on or Senators and Congressmen to
support this initiative,” Briones added.
Meanwhile, Cecilia Soriano of Education
Network, also a member of ABI, called on
the Committees on Education of both
Houses to fast track consolidation and
approval of bills for education. This
includes the modifications on the Roxas
Law and Magna Carta for Teachers as well
as bills to increase financing for
education. “We have been in constant
dialogues with Senators and Congressmen
for the passage of laws for education.
They should prioritize these laws if
they want to really win the hearts of
the education sector,” Soriano said.
Sabyte Lacson of the La Liga Policy
Institute and ABI’s Environment Cluster
called on legislators to finally
concentrate on the release of funds for
social development programs. “The
Department of Budget and Management says
that funds are not released, such as
those for community based forest
management, because the legislators who
sponsored the laws do not follow up on
the release of the funds. We call on our
Senators and Congressmen to check the
status of the allocations they sponsored
so that the people may fully benefit
from public funds,” Lacson said
“The concrete way for the politicians to
prove that they are sincere to the
people, is not through flowery promises,
but to immediately work on the passage
of laws to uplift the lives of the poor
and to fight for people’s welfare by
working on the release of public funds
for social programs,” Briones said.
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