A Collective Responsibility

Country Statement - Philippines
Inaugural Meeting of the International Parliamentarian's Union for Social Service
29-30 August 2003
Seoul, South Korea

By:

Honorable Edgardo J. Angara
Member, Senate of the Philippines

On behalf of the Philippine delegation, I would like to congratulate the Organizing Committee of the National Assembly of Korea for graciously hosting this inaugural meeting of the International Parliamentarian's Union for Social Service. I also extend our best wishes to Mr. Il Yum Kim for his well-deserved election as founding President.

The delivery of social services is fundamental to the stability and development of a country. The citizenry should realize that the delivery of social services is a collective responsibility. Correct payment of taxes, for instance, would go a long way in funding social services.

The Philippine Situation

But that could be wishful thinking at this point. Let me tell you a little bit of the Philippine condition.

The Philippines has not significantly changed in the last 50 years or so. Poverty is still the root of our problems. And poverty continues to hound about half of our populace either because of pure indolence or because there are limited opportunities in our own country.

As you know, one of our main exports is labor. Many of our best professionals and skill workers have been attracted to seek better paying jobs abroad.

Through a combination of historical, political and social factors, majority of our people are still highly dependent on government to provide for basic social services. With its 1.3 million employees, the government is the country's biggest employer.

In the area of agriculture, the anchor or our economy, our farmers rely on government to provide credit services, extension work, irrigation facilities for their plants to grow, and farm to market roads for their products to be brought to the markets.

About 40 percent of our people live in poverty and they look up to the government to provide them food, livelihood, housing, education and health services.

But you and I know government cannot and should not be the sole provider of all those public goods. The private sector must come in and their capital and entrepreneurship must be tapped. They do help.

Still our problems remain. The root of these problems, which is poverty, has spawned a host of other social problems: the government's long protracted war versus insurgency, urban migration and the proliferation of squatter colonies, bureaucratic corruption, a firm grip of the rich few on our political system, and very limited resources to sustain the provision of social services.

Acting on the Challenge

In the area of legislation, the Philippine Congress has been pro-active. We always give priority to enacting social legislation. But even if we pass enough laws, the government is forever lacking in the necessary budgetary funds for such services.

On a personal note, social legislation has been my primary advocacy in my thirteen years as member of the Philippine Senate. To date, I have already authored several laws that aim to provide our people with basic and quality social services, to give them the much-needed help towards their development.

The Free Public Secondary School Act, which I pushed, grants free education to secondary students. The law on Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education, on the other hand, provide tuition assistances, transportation and book allowances to poor but deserving students.

In 1992, I had successfully shepherded the passage of a landmark law on health. The National Health Insurance Act gave birth to PhilHealth, a government program mandated to provide health care assistance to millions of indigent Filipinos.

My Senior Citizens Act has given our elderly the privilege to get discounts for various services and even medicines.

On the agriculture front, the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act has become the blue print for modernization of our fisheries and agriculture sector. It gives much needed attention to research and development, infrastructure, irrigation and scholarship programs for agriculturists and scientists.

There are several proposed measures that are awaiting approval. One of them is the Child Nutrition Act of the Philippines, which seeks to establish and institutionalize a targeted school-based nutrition program to bring malnourished children back to health and keep them in school. Malnutrition is among the top leading causes of the high drop out rate in our country. It also irreparably dulls the sense and sensibility of our very young.

Our legislative proposals also aim to allocate the necessary fund to modernize the education sector and widen the scope of basic health services.

My Campaign Finance and Political Reform Act, on the other hand, seeks to establish a state fund for political parties to shield them from the influence of dirty money and make politicians more responsible. The perennial problem of bureaucratic corruption, that hinders the effective and efficient delivery of government services to the people, can be minimized by making politicians less beholden to vested interest groups.

All these years we have also been engaged in partnerships with non-government and civic organizations in various socials programs and projects to assist the marginalized communities throughout the country. These programs include:

• a targeted school feeding program to address the growing problems of malnutrition, which serves as a prototype for the Child Nutrition Act;

• Livelihood programs to help curb the growing unemployment problem especially in the countryside;

• Medical and dental missions in the poorest areas throughout the country; and

• A coastal resources management program to assist and educate local communities on proper environmental management of their scarce resources.

These are but small steps that will not miraculously solve our social and economic woes. But these are pioneering efforts meant to inspire and encourage others, especially the rich among us, to follow suit.

Need for Drastic Reforms

Having been a former president of the National University of the Philippines, past Minister of Agriculture, and a Senator for the past 13 years have given me the vantage point to have a closer and deeper look at the root cause of our problems. Poverty can only be solved by promoting total progress across the country. How do we do that?

I believe that we must start with structural change. Our Constitution drafted in 1987 is now living in a time warp. It is no longer relevant to our present conditions.

The presidential form of government has bred many ills. It has induced conflict rather than cooperation in policy making. The presidency is like an elected monarchy, where power and wealth emanates.

The centralization of power in the presidency, based in Manila, has created a great inequity in the distribution of scant government resources across the country. It has created an Imperial Manila where power and resources are concentrated, leaving the rest of our provinces to fend for the crumbs.

We now live in a global village and the wonders of the internet and cable television enable us to see what's going on in our respective countries. And we know that most of the reports about the Philippines are depressing. Disasters due to human error, corruption in high places and aborted power grabs.

We have now realized when tracing the roots of our problems that our present institutions are irresponsive and irrelevant and have only spawned and abetted bad leaders and unsound policies.

Looking to a Brighter Future

But we don't give up. With our humble initiatives in the Philippine legislature, we hope we have planted the seeds for the alleviation of poverty in our country. As these seeds grow and bear fruit, we should see a sturdy tree. But we know that there is still a lot to be done.

May this newly-formed organization be a venue and catalyst for tangible changes in our respective countries. As policy makers, let us collectively strive to make a difference in the lives of our people. Let us fight poverty and deprivation by creating systems for a more efficient delivery of social services.

Let us consider ourselves as instruments to make life a little better and lighter for the marginalized. In my country, even the poor continue to smile and we have managed to smile amidst disasters, calamities and a dictator. We are now working to turn that smile into laugher.