Voters’ discernment

THE election campaign is now on. Expectedly, candidates will again un­leash what they have in their arsenals to win votes – including CASH, political gimmickry, and pompous promises.

Hopefully, Filipino voters will be more discerning this time and go beyond mere name recall, popularity and/or notoriety, overly ambitious but short-sight­ed agenda promises and TOKENS. Votes are ABSO­LUTELY NOT FOR SALE. At the end of it all, we get the government we deserve.

Senator Dick Gordon has a sensible advice on this is­sue. He urges voters “to be more discerning in choos­ing candidates; go beyond political gimmickry and advertisements; and focus on competence, abilities and proven track records, among others,” including advocacies and gover­nance agenda.

Gordon’s advice goes true for candidates seek­ing both national and local government positions.

*  *  *

UNCONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFER. Some 10 mil­lion poor families who belong to the lower half of the lowest-income Filipino households will benefit from the P36 billion un­conditional cash trans­fer (UCT) outlay in the approved 2019 national budget. The allocation is P12 billion more than last year’s P24 billion outlay.

The beneficiary house­holds include the 4.4 mil­lion families already en­rolled in the ‘Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Pro­gram (4Ps), some 3 million indigent senior citizens already receiving social pensions, and 2.6 million verified poor families with no children in school. They will each get an additional P300 monthly assistance, higher than the P200 they used to get.

Albay Rep. Joey Sal­ceda, a noted economist and principal proponent of the program, said the UCT is a legislative break­through and heralds a universal basic income regime where low-income segments of society are assured of financial means by the state to access their basic needs without restricting their consump­tion preferences.

Conceived as an inflation safety net policy reform, the UCT, however, can well serve as a major in­strument of the state for social justice to address resource inequality and national growth require­ments under a global­ized market-based private sector-driven economy.

The UCT differs from the pre-existing conditional cash transfers or CCT pro­gram of 4Ps which require beneficiaries to comply with certain specific eligi­bility conditions. It is de­signed to offset the infla­tion impact of the TRAIN law and will be funded from the proceeds of the increased tax on oil, 54% of which is consumed by the top 20% of Filipinos, and other taxes borne mainly by the top income classes.