one big file - Social Watch

Missing Targets: An alternative MDG midterm report
workers, as provided for in the Philippine Constitution,
with a view to ensuring that workers are able to afford
the basic needs and live a life of dignity.
4. Push for a strong asset re-distribution program to
ensure that ownership of and access to resources are not
concentrated to a few families. The mere completion of
the existing, flawed Comprehensive Agrarian Reform
Program will not address the burning problem of social
injustice for landless farmers. Instead, there is a need
to push for the enactment and implementation of a
genuine agrarian reform program that will decisively
dismantle land monopoly, especially in light of the
country’s high incidence of inequality.
5. Increase budgetary support for basic education,
public health, provision of safe drinking water and sanitation
facilities, and other pro-poor infrastructure. Increase
investment in these areas, in particular, cover the specified
budgetary shortfalls in education, health, water
and sanitation, as identified in the Manasan report. 23
Ensure electrification of all barangays, increase paved
road density in all provinces to at least thrice the 2001
national average by 2015, and provide greater financial
support for community-based irrigation systems.
6. Resist and critique the lack of political will to uphold
reproductive rights and push for the implementation
of reproductive health programs at all levels.
7. Push for progressive taxation. Effectively curb
tax evasion which has reached alarmingly high levels
and focus revenue generation through direct taxes and
rationalization of fiscal incentives. Implementing a progressive
taxation program is another effective strategy
for redistribution which can help address the country’s
high incidence of inequality.
8. Effectively address the massive hemorrhage of
government resources due to corruption at the highest
levels, which to this day remains unprosecuted (e.g., the
2004 fertilizer fund scam, the Diosdado Macapagal
Boulevard overprice, the North Rail Project, and the
National Broadband Network project). Prosecute corrupt
government officials, starting with major projects
and the “big fish”.
9. Address issues and concerns of Overseas Filipino
Workers (OFWs). Many OFWs are victims of genderbased
violence and human trafficking which tend to be
underreported; they pay excessive placement fees and
are significantly taxed on their remittances which private
companies like Western Union, mostly benefit from.
As such, there is a need to develop a serious, genuine
and comprehensive reintegration program for OFWs
and provide incentives for them to invest in both the
national and local economy comparable to the incentives
given to foreign investors as well as to support pro-poor
programs— and community based infrastructure (e.g.,
basic social services, water and sanitation facilities).
There is also a need to develop and allocate for more
appropriate and sensitive programs, services and facilities,
especially on-site, to cater to the needs of OFW
victims of gender-based violence; harmonize efforts of
agencies with oversight functions re performance audit
of executive agencies and recommendations for such;
lower the costs of remittances; abolish placement fees and
let these be shouldered by the employers as in the past;
reduce taxes on OFW remittances; aggressively combat
anti-illegal recruitment; include representatives from
OFWs, NGOs/CSOs and TUs to monitor compliance
and oversee action on recommendations; government
officials should sit with their counterparts in destination
countries to address these concerns. 24
10. Develop adequate social security measures for
Filipinos who suffer loss of income in times of conjunctural
poverty (e.g., illness, disability, work injury, maternity)
and long-term unemployment. Increase coverage of social
insurance, especially for the poor, ensure reforms in
the contributions and benefit structure with a view to
removing inequities.
11. Most important, ensure genuine and popular
consultation with, and participation of, the poor in the
formulation of policies and design of programs, especially
those that will affect them the most.
Many of these prescriptions are not new. Many of
these are in fact policy recommendations listed in past
official reports but have remained unacted upon, and
unfunded. It is this chasm, this gap between knowing
what should be done, and actually doing and funding
it, that has placed the Philippines in the morass that it
finds itself in. This is also a telling commentary of both
status and fate of the MDGs in the country today. More
important, this chasm speaks of the rights of the poor
to “live a life of dignity” to continue to be unfulfilled,
a goal that has eluded them for far too long. •
23
Manasan, Rosario G., Financing the Millennium Development Goals: The Philippines, Discussion Paper Series 2007-06, Philippine Institute for Development
Studies, June 2007.
24
Interview with Ellene Sana and Irynn Abano, Executive Director and Advocacy Officer of the Center for Migrant Advocacy, August 2007.
20 S O C I A L W A T C H P H I L I P P I N E S