Answers to Questions
A large portion of my time is spent researching on the relevant issues of the day. I know that most candidates have their staffs to take care of this but I have not yet arrived at that stage. Here are answers I supplied to an organization that is maintaining a website where Senatorial candidates can provide their views:
A. Access to Quality Education
List two specific steps you will initiate or support to ensure greater access to affordable, quality education.
(Please limit your answer to 250 words.)
Repeal the Automatic Appropriations Law and this will allow our negotiators to demand better terms for all our debts. Education is allotted 11% and debt service 28%. By dropping interest payments to 23% you will effectively raise the education budget by 50%. You will be able to double teacher salaries (and subsequently attract the best minds in the country), buy relevant textbooks and construct schools. When these basic requirements have been improved, the curricula can be modified to stress communication and computing skills; emphasis should be likewise placed on inculcating a sense of history and identity among our students that will lead to a greater appreciation of their country.
We need to exploit the internet. Each classroom should have one DSL-connected computer for every 5 students. This will provide unfettered access to the New York Times, Encarta and mathematical websites. These resources provide an enormous wealth of information which may be inexpensively accessed. Computers will also enable distance-learning among adults who missed out on educational opportunities in their youth. Communication between experts at home and overseas will be facilitated and our students will be able to participate in discussions all over the world.
B. Employment Opportunities for Youth
List two major policies and programs you will initiate or support that will generate more quality domestic jobs for the young generation.
(Please limit your answer to 250 words.)
We live in a global economy and the availability of domestic jobs will depend on how competitive our youth will become. This requires purposeful national will to invest in education, healthcare and infrastructure. We need to wean ourselves from the “utang-import” mentality which retards our productive capacity. There needs to be a national movement which will force us to produce most of our needs. Clearly, the prescriptions set forth by some major lending institutions which we have diligently followed for more than 20 years have not been effective in stimulating our economy as effectively as our closest neighbors. We hardly create finished products. Corruption is more rampant in an economy that is loan-based because it is easier to steal something that was not earned through work.
No further trade liberalization will occur pending a thorough review of their effect on national interests. We need to begin negotiating more courageously with the idea that disadvantageous terms translate into higher mortality rates, lower standards of living, worsening poverty and less competitive citizens.
7 comments:
Doc: Gagayahin ko ang payo mo. Babawasan ko ang bayad ko sa aking BPI express card para makabili ng gamot sa high blood.
Please improve your website.
- Make the candidates' info readily available on the home page.
- Lessen the number of sub-menu headings.
- Please create a livelier website. One that promises "we're in to win!" The colors utilized are simply catatonic. The pictures are shrinking away instead of reaching out to its intended audience. The image imparted must be clean, crisp, modern, simple, and honest.
Please improve your campaign:
- Please ask Z. Paredes to project a firmer image. First, he needs a haircut to be considered respectable by the electorate. He needs to smile more often; he projects utter seriousness - as if always ready to create an enemy --though he actually sounds very calm & level-headed.
- Please ask A. Sison to imprint bullet points in the listener's/viewer's memory. He only has little time to spare his listener, so precious time is wasted on lingering. Bullet points. Summarize clearly. Buttress only with relevant & related info.
- Martin Bautista is suerte because the camera is kindest to him; though he tends to get hypnotized by it and he tends to glare at times. He is effective in imparting and imprinting his points, issues, remarks and solutions.
- Always campaign together. The three are most effective when viewed and listened to as a team. Tatlo na lang nga kayo, maghihiwalay pa kayo. That is when the "Kapatiran" concept seems to make glaring sense.
- Starting now, leave the "sacificial" aspect of the Kapatiran campaign & struggle behind muna. It is a very subtle but quite effective turn-off! Talk about succeeding, talk about the promise of a good Philippine future. Talk about the simple plans you have when you take your seat in the Senate. The youth of today have a hidden aversion to the struggles of the past. (especially, when they see the apathy & ineffectiveness of the results of past struggles.) They must be talked to in the context of their own present struggle to create a better future, and not to give up on this dream.
- What is Ang Kapatiran's campaign slogan? "Ibot natin sa Senado" isn't a slogan. This is why the electorate is not responding to your campaign, however good & honest its intentions are. Make it simple for the voters to remember you. Create a 2-3 word slogan.
- Filipinos do not "understand" platforms. Again, Filipinos do NOT "understand" platforms. Filipinos appreciate intentions. When campaigning, bring "up" the platform to the level of intentions. That's when Filipinos "see through" the candidate, and begin to make sense of platforms.
- Make each candidate stand for one very important & easily-relatable issue. (ex: the battered husband bill isn't a significantly appealing stand for a candidate...what's the significance to a bleak economic future?)
- As a party, make three (only 3)significant promises you can accomplish by the end of your first term. Encourage all candidates and parties (Kapatiran or not) to follow your example. Not every candidate or party can promise to deliver everything, as has been the campaign strategy of Filipino parties in the recent past. What can you actually deliver and by what means & possibilities can we expect this to be accomplished? At what cost? Why are these priorities? What are the immediate and long-term benefits?
- Change something drastically in your campaign. Make people notice you. Create or ride on a significant issue you can effectively spark interest in during the heat of the last stretch.
- Remember the eagerness and availability of the youth of the lower-classes, more than those of the middle class. Maximize their vigor and vitality in the remaining days of the campaign.
- Transform your campaign materials into wallpapers and screensavers, and make them available to sympathetic internet cafes, schools, institutions, Makati offices, exclusive villages, etc. This is where the middle class can be very effective.
That's all for now. I'll contribute more in the nearest future...
Delia: kapag naging batas iyong "Magna Carta Patient Bill of Rights Bill" ni Villar, libre and magpagamot sa ospital. Maski ayaw mong magbayad, hindi ka puwedeng pigiling umalis sa ospital kung gusto mo nang umuwi.
Eto iyong link:
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=73908
Hmmm. I'd give Filipinos more credit. This time, even here in Iloilo City, radio listeners have reacted negatively to movie stars, relatives occupying all municipal seats, and empty platforms. Sure, it would be easier to promote the good intentions at the outset, but ignoring the platform is a traditional politician's tactic of smokescreening his ignorance of issues.
In this final stretch, I don't see why the Kapatiran bets have to change their campaign strategy abruptly. If they wanted to portray an image that is disparate from the old guard that is our supposed leaders, they have certainly accomplished it. I agree on subtle tweaks for television appearances, but then how many poor people watch ANC?
Better to address the Class CDE old-style, by grassroots campaigning and word-of-mouth.
As for the Magna Carta Bill, I hope it doesn't shut down Las Piñas hospitals. Almost all of them are private, forcing patients to travel to PGH for decent treatment. I'd rather have him establish a respectable public hospital there.
One problem is the very low regard some of our countrymen place on health care. They wouldn't have qualms paying for their cellphone load, but ask them to contribute voluntarily to PhilHealth or take a preventive health maintenance check-up and most of them would balk at the idea. Then, when they come down with a preventable disease, they blame the government if care is not readily accessible because our leaders place the same low regard for health care. Bakit ganoon?
Shark: I wish that someone writes a PROVINCIAL HOSPITAL LAW which requires the Philippine government to have a minimum level of health-infrastructure presence:
-- every province has at least two government-funded hospital (100-beds or higher);
-- every province has at least 20 satellite clinics (a clinic to have at least 2 doctors, 7 nurses, 8 beds) and the satellite clinics are at least 4 kilometers apart;
IN ADDITION:
-- it should REQUIRE the government to allocate at least P5-Billion a year for salaries/expenses for these hospitals;
-- it should require the government to build at least 50 new satellite-clinics a year for the next 8 years.
nursing1998 proposes a plan that is taken for granted in other countries where healthcare is considered an investment. sad thing is many people in our country will look at you with disbelief when you begin discussing these plans because first thing they will ask is where to get the 5 billion pesos considering the entire health budget is 11 billion pesos. many of our countrymen can't imagine the reality that we simply don't place enough value in human life. we have become so accustomed to the poverty and the suffering and the injustices heaped upon the poor daily. and we refuse to see ourselves as equals to all these other people who naturally think of their own interests primarily.
Doc Martin, when you have become a Senator (I'm voting for all 3 Kapatiran candidates), when you have finally succeeded in having the automatic debt appropriation act repealed (getting nursing 1998's P5 billion should be easy by then shouldn't it?), please make sure that healthcare, along with education, gets high priority on the budgetary agenda. One percent for healthcare is criminal. It should be no less than 10%.
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