The Black & White Movement's 8 Point Reform Agenda

A Post-GMA Government with Meaningful Reforms - The Basics

•Transitional leadership for service and unity.

•Eight urgent tasks for meaningful change.

•Citizen involvement in good governance.

Transitional Leadership for Service & Unity

•Constitutional successor with a deadline
• Presidential & Vice Presidential Elections in 2007
• Reform Agenda
• Council of Advisers

Eight Urgent Tasks for Meaningful Reform

1st - Electoral Reforms

•No credible elections without electoral reforms.
•Needed: New COMELEC commissioners who are competent and fair like former Chairs Monsod, Yorac, and Demetriou.
•Needed: Modern and transparent systems with meaningful citizen participation in voter registration, vote casting, counting, and canvassing.
•Needed: Truth Commission on electoral fraud.

2nd - Reforms in the Justice System

•Move judicial processes faster, with greater transparency and accessibility to all citizens.
•Enhance alternative dispute settlement and develop paralegal systems.
•Strengthen Court of Tax Appeals and the Office of the Ombudsman.
•Set up special courts for settling business disputes.
•Ensure adequate independent budget.

3rd - Financial & Economic Reforms

•Restore government revenues to 1990s level in proportion to national income.
• Run after tax cheats (esp. the one who owes P25 Billion).
• Collect proper income taxes from businesses, doctors, lawyers, entertainers, and others.
• Legislate and collect higher sin taxes.
•Exercise fiscal restraint.
•Reduce debt by creative non-arbitrary means.
•Ensure a level playing field and curb rent-seeking.

4th - Pro-Poor Reform Programs

•Marginal farmers: agrarian reform and sustainable agriculture.
•Municipal fishers: marine sanctuaries and coastal delineation.
•Indigenous peoples: ancestral domain.
•Urban poor: socialized housing.
•Labor: job generation and fair wages.

5th - Peace Efforts

•Stop discredited purely military tactics that have not worked and will not work; they just create new enemies for our system.
•Step up negotiations with MILF, NDF-CPP-NPA, RPMP-PRA, and RPMM-RPA.
•Respect peace agreements.

6th - Environmental Concerns

•Clean air.
•Coastal, riverine, and lagoonal resource management.
•Forest protection and reforestation.
•Soil fertility.
•Solid waste management.

7th - Bureaucratic & Military Reforms

•Uphold transparency, accountability, citizen participation, responsiveness, efficiency, and predictability as key elements of good governance.
•Use competence, integrity, and commitment to good governance as basic values in setting criteria for recruitment and promotion.
•Restore promotions and rewards systems in AFP and PNP.
•Develop effective strategies for defeating state enemies, preventing the rise of international terrorism in the country, and winning the peace.

8th - Constitutional Reforms

•“Cha cha pag wala na si Gloria.”
•“Con Con dapat, huwag con ass.”

•More acceptable, more participatory.
•Con Con delegates to represent districts and interests (party list groups).
•Opportunity to reunite the country if every citizen and idea has an equal chance through open campaigns, fair elections, transparent convention discussions, active media coverage, and an honest plebiscite.

Citizens’ Involvement in Good Governance

•Good governance requires not only responsive officials but also active citizens.
•Governance is too important to be left to the bureaucrats; politics is too vital to be left to the politicians.
•We get the government we deserve.