BPP believes that people, as bearers of God’s image, should be able to live lives of dignity where their minimum requirements for a decent human life are met and provided for, putting them in a position to further elevate their own living standards by their own industry, creativity and hard work after government has levelled the playing field for everyone. “Levelling the playing field” is a non-negotiable demand of righteousness in the social and economic order and an inescapable offshoot of loving God and loving one’s neighbour.
Along this line, the Bangon administration will:
1. Direct a national inventory of all government abandoned, idle, or foreclosed lands and direct the allocation of the same for massive urban and/or rural settlement and housing under Commonwealth Act 141 otherwise known as the PUBLIC LAND ACT, for the building up of communities for the poorest of the poor in partnership with the private sectors such a Gawad Kalinga (GK) and the Habitat for Humanity.
2. Pass a LAND FOR TAXES LAW whereby land owners willing to part with any of their lands for use by the government as relocation or socialized housing site can have the same credited as payment for any local or national tax, whether owing or forthcoming
3. Put up elementary, high school and or entrepreneurial schools therein, as well as heath centers or lying-in clinics to address the most urgent school and medical needs of the community.
4. Encourage the sharing of land by discouraging excessive landholding through the application of the principle of progressive taxation; progressively increase the percentage of land taxes for increasing large holdings (to make it undesirable to have too much land while others have none).
5. Strengthen and further expand the asset reform program of the government through:
a. Agrarian reform
b. Preserving and expanding the municipal water zones for marginal fisherfolk
c. Ancestral domain for upland farmers
d. UDHA for the urban poor
6. Institutionalize cash transfer program as incentive for parents
a. Give a certain amount to parents for keeping their children aged 6 to 13 in school
b. Give a certain amount to poor parents who regularly visit health centres (to develop a healthy citizenry)
7. Grant tax credits to companies who engage in direct, sustainable poverty-alleviation or reduction program.
8. PROTECT LABOR
Some forty million Filipinos are labourers. The labour sector needs special protection, not in a way that kills business, but in a manner that ensures peaceful co-existence and mutual benefit.
Along this line, a Bangon administration will ease tax burdens on businesses which are good or generous to their workers. Tax incentives will be granted to businesses that hire regular workers and avoid contractualization, or which grant higher than minimum wages or benefits to its employees.
Poverty-alleviation or mitigation measures by businesses for its rank and file workers will be given tax credits to encourage generosity of businesses to workers.
Treaties such as AFTA, GATT, and JPEPA will reviewed for any adverse effects on Filipino workers, and will be addressed accordingly.
The interest of labour will be preferred over foreign interest that works adversely on the Filipino worker.
9. PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT
The living standards of the people cannot be protected in the long term if the environment is not taken care of. We are stewards of the environment for the next generation. The Bangon Administration will integrate environmental protection with disaster-preparedness, among others, by:
a. Imposing a moratorium on all large scale, open-pit mining, until after a policy is set in place whereby Filipinos are able to make their own finished products of their own natural resources under a mining program that protects the environment
b. Regulating small-scale mining
c. Imposing a total log ban on all forest-grown or endemic trees
d. Regulating logging of farm or privately-grown trees
e. Strictly enforcing the clean air act, solid waste management, and other existing environmental laws
f. Promoting organic farming
g. Pursuing eco-friendly and renewable fuel sources
h. Promoting eco-tourism
i. Providing the government with the latest equipment on weather or climate reading for disaster-preparedness, as well as tools and adequate equipment for disaster response
j. Strengthening the EIS (Environmental Impact System) among others by increasing the penalty for violators and for polluters
k. Preparing the country to allow the Visayan Sea to rest from commercial fishing and rejuvenate itself
l. Reducing if not removing excise or similar taxes on products that comply with international standards on environmental protection such as the Clean Air Act
m. Prioritising watershed preservation and expansion of watershed areas, not just flood control
n. Encouraging and supporting by legislation the use of “carbon credits” under the Kyoto protocol on climate change