OPEN-ENDED POLITICAL PLATFORM

Spiritual Dimension

1. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Moral Dimension

2.    Build a nation of character and promote the integral development and total well-being of all Filipinos through values formation on such universal principles as sanctity of human life and dignity of the human person; call to family, community and participation, common good, rights and responsibilities, preferential option for the poor, dignity of work and rights of workers, solidarity, care for God’s creation, consistent ethic of life, good citizenship, and basic political education.

3.    Discourage the glorification of sex and violence, pornography, dishonesty, vice, materialism and hedonism, and replace them with structures of virtue, peace, responsibility and achievement.

4.    Abolish all forms of gambling.

5.    Abolish the death penalty.

6.    End the use of torture.

7.    End violence in school fraternities and other institutions and regulate sports whose main aim is to inflict physical harm or violence on the opponent.

8.    Actively promote responsible parenthood and natural family planning.

9.    Encourage media to foster values that contribute to the formation of a national commitment that is maka-Diyos, maka-buhay, maka-bayan, at maka-tao.

Social Dimension

10.  Consistently promote the culture of life, peace, active nonviolence and progressive disarmament.

11.   Declare as contrary to public policy, public morals, public interest, good customs and the common good: the glorification of the culture of death and violence in movies, television, videograms, radio, print media, billboards, posters, and the exhibition and sale of guns and the posting of pro-gun stickers in public places.

Multidimensional Approach to Order and Peace

12.   Make it a criminal offense for anyone except police officers or soldiers and licensed private security guards in uniform and on duty, to carry firearms or any other weapons in public places.

13.   Increase the penalty for illegal possession of firearms or violation of any firearms law to reclusion temporal (12 to 20 years without parole or pardon). Impose perpetual disqualification to hold public office on violators who are public officials.

14.   Disallow the obscuring of the windows of motor vehicles. (This makes sense in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling that vehicles should not be searched nor occupants subjected to bodily search.)

15.   Ban the exhibit and/or sale of firearms and ammunition in malls and other public places.

16.   Ban the manufacture, importation or sale of toy guns, air guns or replicas of guns.

17.   Ban the export of firearms.

18.   Ban the import of guns except high-powered guns for use by the police and the military.

19.   Legalize and place under tight government control the local production and sale of firearms for use by the police and military as well as the civilians for sports and home protection. Manufacture and sale of firearms without authorization of the government shall be punishable with the same penalty for illegal possession of firearms as provided in No. 13 above.

20.   Require applicants for firearm permits to show to the authorities that he/she has a gun safety deposit box at home approved by the police.

21.   Mandate the periodic inventory, decommissioning and melting down of all confiscated guns for conversion into manhole covers and other useful instruments.

22.   Give financial rewards to those who take advantage of the general amnesty whereby individuals may voluntarily surrender unlicensed firearms with no questions asked and without incurring any criminal or civil liability. No other form of amnesty shall be allowed.

23.   Impose the same penalty for illegal possession of firearms on anyone found guilty of “planting evidence” to incriminate others.

24.   Formulate and implement a no-nonsense national strategy to eliminate the manufacture, distribution, trafficking, transshipment, sale and use of all illegal drugs.

25.   Uphold the primacy of peace negotiations and put an end to all forms of militarist measures; address the centuries-old root problems of the armed conflicts to make way for peaceful co-existence among the Muslims, the Lumads and the Christians in Mindanao.

26.   End the climate of impunity for extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances by conducting thorough investigations, pursuing conviction of perpetrators, and providing adequate protection for witnesses.

Good Governance

27.   Abolish the pork barrel system.

28.   Repeal the bank secrecy law.

29.   Prohibit political dynasties up to the second degree of consanguinity.

30.   Accord high priority and provide money to projects and programs for the underprivileged, the indigenous peoples, the elderly, the prisoners, the disabled, the veterans and the youth, and support non-government organizations or communities whose projects directly benefit the poor.

31.   Conduct a comprehensive debt audit; attain the moral leverage to renegotiate debt; bring own debt servicing and prioritize basic public services;

32.   Make representations before the Supreme Court to bring about the speedy administration of justice.

33.   Ensure transparency and public accountability in government activities and transaction; reinforce vigilance against graft and corruption, abuse of authority, and waste in all three branches of the government and at all levels of bureaucracy; ensure that public officials shun profligacy and live within their means.

34.   Prosecute guilty and corrupt public officials, no matter their position or political ties.

35.   Institutionalize civil society participation in the budget process and pass the freedom of information bill to allow citizens to monitor and exact accountability from public officials.

36.   Enforce by administrative/criminal action the failure of public officials to liquidate their cash advances within a reasonable period, not exceeding three months.

37.   Undertake a thorough review of the systems and procedures and guidelines on the procurement in all government institutions aimed at forestalling the commission of graft and corruption.

38.   Promote a safe, clean, healthy and wholesome environment, particularly zero waste management; promote stewardship as a way of life; and promote the development of parks throughout the country.

39.   Safeguard essential goods and services such as water, power, education, and health against private control, commodification, and overuse. Markets must not gain control over shared resources. The government should serve as a steward of public commons, not an agent of privatization. The government should also explore community-based ways of managing public commons.

40.   Provide incentives and public financing for green jobs and environment-friendly technology and processes, adopt mitigation and adaptation measures to protect the people who suffer the harshest repercussions of climate change, and stop further destruction of our ecosystems on which our nations’ future depends.

Economic Development

41.   Ensure rapid and sustained economic growth for sustainable poverty reduction and better quality of life for all by:

• reviewing and rationalizing all outstanding public debts and limiting future government borrowings within the growth level of our exports, OFW remittances or GDP.
• raising private and public savings rates to increase total investment rate;
• enhancing investments in human resource development, especially by strengthening education in the sciences, mathematics, engineering and English;
• instituting a labor-first policy that provides for the full protection of labor rights, fair income, security of tenure, and employment guarantee to all workers
• streamlining government bureaucracy to reduce personnel expenditures (besides educing corruption) but promoting a strong civil service founded on professionalism and integrity, merit and fitness, and pay equity.
• drastically improving tax administration and revenue collection and plugging leakages such as redundant tax perks to business, evaded taxes from professionals, under-collected ‘sin taxes’ due to outdated costings;
• abolishing laws, rules and regulations that give government personnel, like the BIR, the discretion to allow or disallow certain deductions or exemptions, etc.;
• prioritizing agricultural development to attain a high degree of self-sufficiency by encouraging productivity through the introduction of new technologies and support-infrastructure;
• creating micro-finance and other credit facilities for small enterprises by harnessing OFW remittances and more exports for economic development;
• encouraging livelihood through the formation of cooperatives and other small enterprises and development programs to alleviate poverty in the grassroots level and making sure that subsidy programs for the poor are not availed of by the rich (NFA, Pag-Ibig, etc.);
• implementing the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program and other asset reform laws, which include the Indigenous People’s Rights Act of 1997 (IPRA), the Fisheries Code of 1998, and the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992 (UDHA);
• promoting industrialization by encouraging the expansion of useful industries, including telecommunications and information technology, to more effectively harness our God-given resources for the economic well-being of the people; developing and implementing an industrialization plan to generate more jobs and stimulate a self-sustaining economy;
• strengthening regulation of corporations and the financial sector to avoid excesses and to ensure that those in natural resources exploitation shoulder the full social and environmental costs of their activities, and that consumers are protected from predatory practices of privatized public services;
• attaining a stable balance of trade by encouraging the development of new export products and improving existing ones instead of relying on the export-oriented development policies;
• putting safety nets in place to address the negative effects of globalization; promoting fair trade rules and practices.

Political Culture

42.   Maintain civilian supremacy over the military at all times.

43.   Fix the term of office of the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces to three years regardless of the statutory age of retirement.

44.   Disallow active military and police personnel to be assigned as aides and security officers.

45.   Forbid elected and appointed public officials to write regular columns, act in movies and television shows, act as commentators or anchorpersons on radio and television, and appear on TV and radio commercials and print advertisements, posters and billboards.

46.   Forbid the setting up of billboards or similar media in public places with pictures of the public official responsible for the project or for any other purpose.

47.   Apply to everyone the Constitutional ban against relatives of incumbent government officials up to the third degree from seeking public office simultaneously or succeeding the former, and to make it unlawful for any member of the Senate or the House of Representatives to run for another office without first resigning from his/her current position six months before the elections.

48.   Promote national and local candidates (servant leaders) who are morally upright and competent and who subscribe to the founding principles and platform of AKP.

49.   Require candidates for President, Vice President, Senators and Congressmen to possess a college degree, in addition to the Constitutional requirements for public office.

Foreign Policy

50.   Strive to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy: “They [peoples] shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not raise sword against another nation, neither shall they train for war again [a gunless society].”

51.   Pursue peace based on love, justice, reconciliation, active nonviolence and progressive disarmament.

52.    Be a nation that is a friend to all and an enemy to none.