Every six years, the Caucus of Development NGO Networks, Inc. (CODE-NGO), the Change Politics Movement (CPM), and other civil society organizations gather to craft a four-pillar Development and Reform Agenda (DRA).

The DRA serves to raise awareness and to drum up support for vital and critical actions that the next President and Administration of the Philippines should implement in order to address the multiple challenges facing our country today. For their term of office in 2022-2028, we present this DRA.

The priority government actions cited below consider the plight of marginalized sectors such as farmers and fisherfolk, workers, urban poor, and indigenous peoples. Other actions are related to reducing poverty and inequities, ensuring empowerment, democratization and good governance, and protecting human rights and building peace.

The next Administration must acknowledge the need to ensure environmental protection and promotion even when pursuing economic growth. Sustained and sustainable economic development requires the active involvement of the majority of the Filipinos- the workers, farmers, fishers, micro and small entrepreneurs and cooperatives.

A. Environment

1. Watersheds are crucial in sustaining water supply for people. Rehabilitate and protect all watersheds. Avoid the conversion of forests to agricultural use since it will impact on water quality which in turn will undermine food security.

2. Strengthen the implementation of the Climate Change Act and the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) Act, and integrate ecosystem approaches in DRRM and climate change adaptation/mitigation (CCA/M) planning, putting premium on the role of the local stakeholders and building capacities to ensure community resilience across the landscape.

3. Strengthen the role and participation of civil society organization (CSO) representatives in the national and local DRRM Councils and ensure seats for people’s organizations (POs). 

4. Use updated and science informed hazard and vulnerability and capacity and need assessments as bases for DRRM plans and funding.

5. Ensure continued and increased funding support from the national and provincial DRRM Funds to 4th to 6th class municipalities, to build their resilience/ disaster preparedness.

6. Improve the access and effective use of local government units and local CSOs of the People’s Survival Fund (PSF) and other funds for climate change related actions for programs and infrastructure to build resilience to climate change.

7. Effectively implement biodiversity strategies and programs, with particular focus on urban biodiversity, agro-fishery biodiversity and genetic resources.

8. Ensure the implementation of the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) through policies that will enable carbon mitigation and climate change adaptation.

9. Ensure the full implementation of various environmental laws such as Clean Air Act, Solid Waste Management Act and the Forestry Law and act to control pollution, including the dumping of mine tailings into rivers.

10. Support (a) the speedy enactment of the proposed amendments to the DRRM Act based on the recent “sunset review” of the implementation of the law, and (b) the passage of the Alternative Minerals Management Bill.

B. Strengthen the Local Economy

1. Provide financial and capacity-building support to local producers and enterprises, especially micro and small enterprises, cooperatives and social enterprises to improve their competitiveness.

2. Adopt a strategic and coherent activist trade and industrial policy, establishing an industrial development blueprint that vertically integrates industries engaged in raw material extraction with those engaged in the production of finished consumer goods, to scale the entire value chain, horizontally integrate firms into strong industrial clusters and pragmatically maximize trade opportunities.

3. Ensure the involvement of CSOs (e.g., people’s organizations, cooperatives) in the discussions and planning of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), ASEAN Economic Community and other similar international groupings and initiatives.

4. Effectively act against smuggling of agricultural and manufactured products, which pose unfair competition to local producers.

C. Employment

1. Provide adequate support to workers who have lost their jobs because of the pandemic, including overseas Filipino workers who have returned to the country, through enhanced unemployment support from SSS and OWWA, capacity building and financial support to set up their own enterprises and support to MSMEs which sustain the employment of their workers.

2. Decisively act against labor contractual practices and policies in both private and public institutions (including GOCCs and government financial institutions). Promote regular employment and protect the right to security of tenure of workers by directing the Secretary of Labor to ensure the effective enforcement of existing labor laws and compliance with labor standards.

3. Work towards full employment as a central government policy. Formulate and implement an employment guarantee policy and employment generation schemes that would create better job opportunities for workers.

4. Adopt a National Rural Employment Guarantee Program which provides employment on-demand of up to 150 days per year for adults from poor rural households who are willing but unable to find work.

5. Develop a long-term human resources development plan for the country which examines trends and anticipates and prepares for needed skills and capacities.

6. Support the enactment of the Security of Tenure Bill.

D. Sustainable Agriculture and Fishery and Agri-Processing

1. Prioritize the development of the agriculture-fishery sector, and provide adequate government funding for this. Support the effective implementation of the National Action Plan for Family Farmers. Support local government units in maximizing the use of additional resources because of the Mandanas ruling to promote sustainable agriculture and fishery production and processing and the development of local economies.

2. Provide support for the intensified organizing and capacity-building of farmers and fishers’ organizations and cooperatives for their resilient recovery vis-à-vis the COVID 19 pandemic and climate change.

3. Support the effective consolidation of farm and fishery production and marketing to improve productivity and incomes of smallholders through block or cooperative farming/fishing and marketing and collective action for inclusive value chains. 

4. Support farmers/fishers-to-consumers market linkage to minimize costs associated with intermediaries and improve access to nutritious food.

5. Provide appropriate support services to farmers and fisherfolk, including extension, irrigation, e-commerce/marketing and roads/transportation. Make credit more accessible to small farmers and improve government support for crop insurance including risk insurance and risk transfer modalities. 

6. Mainstream organic agriculture in the Department of Agriculture (DA) and push as the national policy the implementation of sustainable agriculture, organic agriculture and natural farming systems for the DA’s commodity program in attaining food security.

7. Assign commercial fishing ports/landings in areas proximate to identified commercial fishing areas (i.e., outside municipal waters). 

8. Enhance coastal forest rehabilitation for marine productivity and protection.

9. Support the institutionalization of the Partnership Against Hunger Poverty (PAHP), also known as the institutional food purchase scheme, to promote national food security and the development of more farmers’ markets through agri-coops.

10. Support (a) the amendment of RA 11524 or the Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund Act to increase farmer representation in the PCA board and in the Trust Fund Management Committee for more substantial representation and participation of coconut farmers and farm-workers in the planning, monitoring and evaluation of the management and use of the coconut levy trust fund, and (b) the enactment of a National Land Use Act which prioritizes the use of prime agricultural land with existing and potential irrigation source to produce rice, corn and other food crops.

E. Resource Development and Regulation

1. Provide for effective and appropriate regulation with multi-sectoral representation of public utilities, including power and water.

2. Recognize and support genuine electric cooperatives.

3. Invest in and support alternative energy resources. The government should have transition plans on the use of renewable energy to ensure reliable and inexpensive access to electricity.

4. Provide incentives to renewable energy service providers and user communities.

5. Develop an effective and sustainable mass transport system for the country. 

F. Fiscal and Tax Reform

1. Allocate a higher share of the national budget towards social spending (such as Health, Education, Social Protection) with a focus on programs that support the poor and marginalized.

2. Tap private sector financing for Infrastructure through Private-Public Partnerships projects that are competitively bid-out.

3. Impose and collect taxes from digital platforms even if they do not have physical presence or permanent establishment here in our country.

4. Increase government revenues by ensuring the effective collection of taxes and fees, including an effective program to go after big time tax evaders.

5. Promote and support LGUs in increasing taxation of idle land.

6. Insulate property valuation for taxation purposes from local level politics by re-centralizing the approval of the schedule of market values which serve as the basis of Real Property and other related taxes.

7. Support the amendment of the Local Government Code to increase the share of the national tax allotment (NTA) of local governments to 50% (from 40%) of the total national taxes, and to include poverty incidence as one of the factors considered in the formula for distributing NTA among the LGUs.

8. Amend the Tax Code and other laws to (a) ensure that taxes on loans and other business transactions implemented in particular localities are paid to the concerned LGUs and not to the LGUs where the headquarters of the corporation or company is located, (b) impose a wealth tax, that is, a tax not on the income but on the net worth of natural persons, and (c) ensure that there is no tax preference for passive income vis-à-vis compensation income or ordinary income or business income.

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Note: CODE-NGO is currently validating the above Agenda with various civil society organizations serving the basic sectors and operating in different geographic areas. The validation process will run until April 25, 2022. Comments, suggestions or queries on the DRA may be sent to ssoliman@code-ngo.org