Passport To A New Philippines by Kapatiran Partry - HTML preview

1.1.1 FOUNDING PRINCIPLES

The AKP was founded on ten principles.

1. Belief in One Almighty God. There is only one eternal Supreme  Being,  Creator  of  us  all.  God’s  laws  are  written in every human  heart,  summarized  in  the  two-fold command: Love God above all, and the others as yourself.
2. Right to Life and Dignity of the Human Person. Every human person is created in the image and likeness of God. We believe that every human life is sacred from conception to death; that people are more important than things; and that the measure  of every institution is whether or not it enhances the life and dignity of the human person.
3. Call to Family, Community and Participation. The human person is not only sacred but inherently social. The God-given institutions of marriage and the family are central and serve as the foundations for social life. They must be supported and strengthened, not undermined. Beyond the family, every person has a right to participate in the wider society and a corresponding duty to work for the advancement of the common good and the well-being of all, especially the poor and the weak.
4. Rights and Responsibilities. As social beings, our relationships are governed by a web of rights and corresponding duties. Every person has a fundamental right to life and a right to those things that allow them to live a decent life – faith and family, food and shelter, health care and housing, education and employment. In society as a whole, those who exercise authority have a duty to respect the fundamental rights of all persons. Likewise, all citizens have a duty to respect human rights and to fulfill their responsibilities to their families, to each other, and to the larger society.
5. Option for the Poor and Vulnerable. The moral test of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. The poor have the most urgent moral claim on the conscience of the nation. Our Christian faith calls on all of us to embrace this preferential love of the poor and vulnerable, to embody it in our lives,     and to work to have it shape public policies and priorities.
6. Dignity of Work and Rights of Workers. The economy must serve people, not vice versa. Work is a form of continuing participation in God’s act of creation. Work is a way of fulfilling part of our human potential given to us by God. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers, owners and managers must be respected – the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to organize and join unions, to economic initiative, and ownership and private property.
7. Solidarity. Because of the interdependence of all members of the human family around the globe, we have a moral responsibility to commit ourselves to the common good at all levels: in local communities, in our nation, in the community of nations. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they may be.
8. Subsidiarity. It is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable, that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and industry (Pope Pius XI, Quadregesimo Anno). The principle of subsidiarity holds that the functions of government should be performed at the lowest level possible, as long as they can be performed adequately. Otherwise stated, subsidiarity means decisions being taken close to the grass roots.
9. Common Good. The common good is the “sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and easily.” (#74 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.) “The principle of the common good, to which every aspect of social life must be related if it is to attain its fuller meaning, stems from the dignity and equality of all people. The common good is the reason that political community exists.  The State  is an expression of civil society, and as such must guarantee its unity, coherency and organization in order that the common good may be attained.” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine   of the Church.)  Elements of the Common Good: a) respect   for, and promotion of, the fundamental rights of the person; b) prosperity, or the development of the spiritual and temporal goods of society; and c) the peace and security of the group and its members. (#1925, Catechism of the Catholic Church)
10. Care for God’s Creation. The world that God created has been entrusted to us, yet our use of it must be directed by God’s plan for creation, not simply for our own benefit. Our stewardship of the earth is participation in God’s act of creating and sustaining the world. In our use of creation, we must be guided by our concern for the welfare of others, both around the world and for generations to come, and by a respect for the intrinsic worth and beauty of all God’s creation.
11. Peace, Active Nonviolence and Progressive Disarmament. The Kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus is not a Kingdom to be imposed by the force of arms.  It is a Kingdom to be built   by love. A strategy of nonviolence requires solidarity as well as action. Recourse to armed violence as a method to bring about social transformation cannot be justified. The road to total liberation is not the way of violence, class struggle or hate; it is the way of love, brotherhood and peaceful solidarity. To remove social ills, active nonviolence is our moral countersign to the ideologies of today that espouse armed violence to change the status quo.  “All sectors of the Church must actively work for  an end to the manufacture and production of the technology   of death and the arms trade as part of the Church’s vision of peace.” (Decrees, Art. 23, #3, Second Plenary Council of the Philippines)

1.1.1.1 DECLARATION OF A CONSISTENT ETHIC OF LIFE

AKP  upholds  human  life  in   all   its   forms   and   stages.   All are important. One aspect of human life affects another.

The precondition for sustaining a consistent ethic of life is a “respect life” attitude or atmosphere in society. Where human life is considered cheap and easily wasted, eventually nothing is held sacred, and all lives are in jeopardy.

A consistent ethic of life  means  being  pro-life  across  the board – opposing abortion, artificial contraception, the death penalty, euthanasia, sports whose main aim is to inflict physical violence or harm on the opponent, torture to extract confession from an accused or a suspect, hazing, maltreatment of prisoners, pornography, prostitution, fraternity violence, the culture of guns, death and violence, vendettas, the arms race, poverty, corruption, and unsafe working conditions.

A consistent ethic of life should be the moral framework within which all issues in the political arena are to be addressed. The consequence of a consistent ethic of life  is the provision of a standard to test public policy, party platform, and the postures of candidates for public office.

Finally, it would be well to remember James 2:10-11: “Whoever falls into sin on one point of the law, even though he keeps the entire remainder, has become guilty on all counts. For he who said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’ also said, ‘You shall not kill.’ If therefore you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.”

1.1.2 UNIQUE FEATURES OF AKP

1. AKP believes in the principle of “First Things First.” Hence, its first objective in the platform is “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be given you besides.”

2. AKP believes that principles and platform must come before candidates.

3. Its ideology is the common good.

4. It is the only party that promotes platform-based politics with clear and specific objectives, and whose candidates are committed to the party’s founding principles and platform.

5. It is the only party that has a built-in education component.

6. It is pro-life across the board.

7. It is the only party that has two role models:

St. Thomas More and President Ramon Magsaysay.

8. It is the only party whose theme song (Pananagutan) upholds the principle that we are responsible for one another.

9. Its approach in politics is holistic and integral.

1.2 VISION

Fullness of life for all Filipinos, through loving God and serving others.

AKP aspires for a nation of character that radiates political integrity, social stability, high market and technological competitiveness, and sustainable economic prosperity in a global society.

AKP aspires for a country at peace with itself and with other nations, where strife and violence are things of the past, and in which all Filipinos are safe and unafraid.

AKP aspires for an economically vigorous country from which poverty has been banished, and which offers meaningful employment to all Filipinos at home, not abroad.

AKP aspires for a healthy country in which affordable medical and hospital care are available to all citizens.

AKP aspires for a country that offers the very best education to all young people, so that they can reach their full potential.

1.3 MISSION

1. To put God and His teaching at the center of politics.
2. To bring an end to dirty or trapo politics – the politics of pork barrel, family political dynasties, bribery and corruption,  the politics of personality or celebrity politics, politics of deceit and manipulation, dishonesty, patronage, pay-off, unprincipled compromises, big money politics, guns and goons, unliquidated cash advances, electoral chicanery and other political shenanigans.
3. To promote open-ended, platform-based politics with clear and specific objectives – aimed at enhancing the common good and promoting the politics of virtue and duty.
4. To focus on moral principles, not on political expediency; on the needs of the poor and vulnerable, not those of the rich and the powerful; on the pursuit of the common good, not the demands of special interests; and on the culture     of life and peace, not the culture of death and violence.
5. To undertake politics in a holistic and integral way – with new fervor and new methods.
6. To build a nation of character by undertaking values formation and promoting the politics of virtue and duty, stewardship and good citizenship.
7. To prove that politics can become an effective means for the integral development of all rather than being a tool for the advancement of a privileged few.
8. To prove that politics are the medium through which we love our neighbor and promote democratic public participation, fairness and justice, good governance, peace, poverty alleviation, transparency and public accountability.
9. To promote a “respect life” attitude in society.
10. To  ensure that the government does its primary duty  to protect and serve the people and maintain peace and order.

1.4 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, maka-kalikasan, 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 Peace and Order

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.

Good Governance

25. Abolish the pork barrel system.

26. Accord  high  priority  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.

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

28. 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 l