‘Reduce money politics’ movement to be launched

DAGUPAN CITY — Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. said yesterday he is poised to set into motion on Tuesday, when Congress resumes session, an idle measure that requires state subsidies to political parties to shield them from corrupt private benefactors as well as modernize them.

De Venecia told reporters at his Bonuan Binloc residence here that the measure, contained in the Political Party Act of 2006, aims "to reduce money politics, to reduce the intervention of narcotic syndicates, drug lords, gambling lords, and jueteng lords in national and local politics."

The House committee on suffrage and electoral reform chaired by Rep. Teddy Locsin approved the bill.

De Venecia claimed credit for the concept embodied in the measure, and he said Sen. Edgardo Angara had filed a similar bill in the Senate.

He said Minority Leader Francis Escudero agreed last week to work for the approval of the bill and possibly have it enacted in time for the May elections. De Venecia said he will ask President Arroyo to certify the bill as urgent.

"I said just like the political parties in Europe and in US and Japan, we should have the state financing the political parties so I’m introducing on an experimental basis a financial outlay of P500 million," De Venecia said. State subsidies to political parties are also allowed in Australia, Malaysia, and Thailand, De Venecia said. "Our constant problem is the problem of corruption," he added.

It is not clear if the measure allows political parties to continue receiving funding support from the private sector on top of the state subsidy.

"It’s the government that runs the nation and its political parties that organize the government. So we have to strengthen the political parties," he said.