FDC includes Six will Fix! call in its 12-point Fiscal Agenda, Presidentiables respond favorably

The Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), a coalition of people’s organizations, non-government organizations, and social movements campaigning on the issue of debt and power and water privatization, published a 12-point Fiscal Agenda that outlines its policy proposals for the next administration of Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III and the 15th Congress (House of Representatives and Senate).

It included as one of the proposals our call for the Six will Fix! campaign.

It specifically includes item:

10. Pass a law Automatically Appropriating Funds to Education pegged at 6% of the GNP as prescribed for developing countries by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The proposal was embodied in House Bill 5423 filed in the 14th Congress.

The twelve proposals are:

1. Strike out the Automatic Debt Servicing Provision or Section 26(B), Book VI of Executive Order 292 or the 1987 Revised Administrative Code.
2. Conduct an Official Debt Audit.
3. Repudiate blatantly illegitimate debt cases.
4. Rescind onerous contracts entered by the national government.
5. Repeal the outmoded Republic Act 4860 or the Foreign Borrowings Act of 1966.
6. Pass an Alternative Official Development Assistance (ODA) Act.
7. Regulating borrowings by the Local Government Units (LGUs) by amending Sections 295 to 303, Book II, Title IV of Republic Act 7160 or the Local Government Code of the Philippines.
8. Scrap the R-VAT law or Republic Act 9337 and explore passing a law rationalizing fiscal incentives and removing other tax incentives to corporations.
9. Issue an Executive Order (EO) declaring moratorium on privatization of state assets pending a review of the privatization policy.
10. Pass a law Automatically Appropriating Funds to Education pegged at 6% of the GNP as prescribed by the UNESCO.
11. Pass a law Automatically Appropriating Funds to Health in order to ensure that total health expenditure is pegged at no less than 5% of the GDP as the standard recommended by the WHO.
12. Pass a law Automatically Appropriating 5% of the General Appropriations Act (GAA) to mass housing and settlement projects for the poor.

The presentation is available below:

FDC’s 12-point Fiscal Agenda

View more presentations from Six will Fix! Campaign.

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Presidentiables then responded favorably on the six will fix proposal:

Edwin Lacierda, spokesman of Liberal Party presidential candidate Senator Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” C. Aquino III, said in a telephone interview: “The education and health of our citizens is very important for him (Senator Aquino), so I think the automatic appropriation to them at specific rates would be amenable to him.”

According to Nacionalista Party spokesman, senatorial candidate and former Cavite Rep. Gilbert Cesar C. Remulla: “Senator Villar… agrees with appropriations for education, health and mass housing but… he has yet to study the specific rates for each.”

See the full news report here: http://www.bworldonline.com/main/content.php?id=7769.