What various NGOs, POs wish to hear

People’s organizations (POs) and nongo-vernment organizations (NGOs) have made their wish list known to the public and they, hope, President Benigno Aquino 3rd, through the media, demonstrations and rallies. Some have sent manifestos and positions papers to Malacañang.

The administration also organized “developmental forums” and invited NGOs and POs to speak, join group discussions and submit their “wish lists” for possible inclusion in President Aquino’s State of the Nation Address.

Of the institutions that made economic proposals the most important ones were those from the Fair Trade Alliance, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Employers Confederation of the Philippines.

Fair Trade recommends a review of all free trade agreements the Philippines has signed, a policy of industrialization that would revive our country’s industries crippled by globalization and trade liberalization (the lowering of tariffs at the expense of local manufacturers), a policy to revive the ailing agricultural and agri-business sector to uplift the farming sector and create jobs and reduce poverty drastically and promote prosperity in the rural areas.

The Federation of Philippine Industries wishes President Aquino to move decisively against smuggling because it kills local manufacturers and hurts even foreign companies that have opened factories in the Philippines. Smuggling not only steals revenue from the government, it also kills jobs and causes company closures.

The nationalist and left-of-center IBON Foundation wishes the Aquino administration to “adopt pro-people” measures to generate revenues for more effective delivery of social services. IBON urges the government to place the burden of adjusting to our country’s fiscal and poverty crises to those in the economy that have the greater capacity to pay.

Its socialistic prescriptions include restoring the corporate income tax from 30 percent to 35 percent. It also wishes government to bring import tariffs to their 1993 levels, or to 5.6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). These measures would immediately pump in some P400 billion in new revenues.

The most atrocious demands are those from the militant nationwide organization of public transport drivers, Pagkakaisa ng mga Samahan ng Tsuper at Operator Nationwide (Piston).

Among Piston’s demands are that fares be increased, that some government disciplinary rules be waived, that discussions about ridding the roads of jeepneys be stopped once and for all, and—weirdest of all demands—that their members not to be given traffic violation tickets for loading and unloading wherever they want and for turning street corners into their terminals and loading stations.

Other groups, like the left-wing Bayan (Bagong Alyansang Makabayan) and its associated organizations all over the country wish the President to adopt their “People’s 10-point Agenda.”

Groups concerned with extrajudicial killings and disappearances wish the President to discipline the military and the police more rigorously.