Migrants' manifesto for issue-based electoral contest

The information about this manifesto came from the following online: http://www.petitiononline.com/OFWMan/ and addressed to the Philippine Electorates and concerned groups and individuals. As of 3pm, February 21, there were 68 signatories noted. We are printing this here for those who may be interested to inform their migrant family members who may, in turn, wish to sign this manifesto online as well.

" We, the Overseas Filipinos worldwide, urge each and everyone in the coming May electoral contest to implore all political parties, emerging parties and their respective candidates to bring forth a platform-based campaign so that the electorate can choose credible persons who are worthy to lead the nation. In order to advance democratic governance in the Philippines, there should be a structure or process of reform that promotes increasingly participatory and accountable governance. In this context, the will and voice of the people should be respected at all times and the sanctity of the ballots must be safeguarded.

The root causes of human insecurity in the Philippines - and thus, threats to overall peace and development - include conditions of inequity, with an elite few controlling power and economic resources; abject poverty; poor governance; injustice, abuse of authority and violations of human rights; and marginalization of minority groups. And yet, squandering of billions of pesos from legitimate and illegitimate sources had been a common scenario in a personality and patronage based electoral contest.

The proposed platform based campaign is envisioned to change this bad practice. In order to sustain poverty reduction, there must be equitable growth and the poor people who are in the majority must have political power - i.e. with a real voice and space. The powerful and/or the elites - whether political leaders, corporations or other influential actors - must be held accountable for their actions; more specifically, they must be held accountable for their success or failure in their individual or party platform of promised good governance.

We are calling for robust, transparent, internally democratic and accountable political parties in order to develop a stronger democratic culture in the Philippines. Otherwise, the right to choose will remain to be pre-empted by the elites that own the political process, including the political organizations. We challenge those who want to become legitimate servants and leaders to articulate a concrete and doable developmental plan aimed at the Filipino migrant workers around the world. We pledge to support legitimate servants of the people running for any public position that aggressively promote the interest of our sector on the following issues:

1) Institute meaningful comprehensive electoral reforms starting with the removal of the residency requirement inserted at the last minute by congress in the Absentee Voting Law. Introduce laws that will create a transparent campaign expenditures and verifiable financial source imposing a limit to individual, group, and corporate campaign donations.

2) Creation of an office with a Cabinet status such as the Ministry of Migration and Development that will truly work for the interests of migrant workers. This office must be led by a Minister whose primary task is to manage orderly labor migration, harness the development potentials of migration and development (co-development). Set up an advisory board composed of qualified, dedicated, and credible Overseas Filipinos to advice the Ministry.

(To be continued…)

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