Legislative Agenda for the 19th Congress

As an organization advocating for human development in the Philippines, PLCPD continues to strive to address policy issues that affect the lives of vulnerable Filipinos through population and human development legislation. The PLCPD Legislative Agenda for the 19th Congress is a new set of commitments that prioritizes and puts forward the concerns and aspirations of vulnerable sectors in society. As a platform for cooperation and advocacy, this agenda will unite the members of PLCPD toward one common goal – to expand people’s choices and opportunities so every Filipino can live a better life.

Children’s rights

  • Civil registration and vital statistics. Amendment to the Civil Registry Law to institute a comprehensive, inclusive, and efficient CRVS system and to address the needs of the more than five million Filipino children whose births are unregistered.
  • Positive discipline. Promoting positive approaches to parenting as an alternative to physical and humiliating forms of discipline.
  • Magna Carta of Children. Translating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into a comprehensive domestic legislation for children that upholds the principles of non-discrimination, best interests of the child, survival and development, and participation of the child in matters affecting them.

Women’s rights, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and the prevention of violence against women and girls

  • Adolescent pregnancy prevention. Institutionalizing a comprehensive program for adolescent pregnancy prevention by providing access to information and services on RH, strengthening comprehensive sexuality education, and social protection for adolescent parents.
  • Review and oversight of Reproductive Health Law. Making implementing agencies accountable for their mandate in ensuring: (1) family planning services, (2) reproductive, maternal, newborn child, and adolescent health at all levels, (3) massive information dissemination and awareness-raising and sexuality and RH education, and (4) adequate funding for the law.
  • Divorce. Instituting absolute divorce as an alternative mode for dissolution of marriage in the Philippines to give full relief not present in existing laws to couples in intolerable and irreconcilable conditions and protecting women, men, and children in abusive marriage relationships.
  • Anti-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sexual characteristics (SOGIESC) or SOGIE equality. Development and implementation of mechanisms in all aspects of society to fully integrate a true SOGIE-friendly and supportive programs and services, to shape a nation that fully accepts one’s right to be protected against discrimination, violence, and harassment, regardless of their gender identity, sexual orientation, and expression, in pursuit of a gender-equal society.
  • Magna Carta of Workers in the Informal Economy. Recognizing the contribution of workers in the informal economy and helping them achieve a quality life by providing benefits and safety nets and by affording them protection from poor and discriminatory working conditions.
  • Recognition of unpaid care and domestic work. Recognizing, measuring, and valuing unpaid care and domestic work by addressing gender inequalities in productive and reproductive roles, enhancing work-from-home opportunities for both women and men, improving public services and social protection measures that have direct and indirect consequences on care work, and reforming workplace policies to achieve work-life balance for both women and men.
  • Gender-responsive and inclusive protocols and programming during public health concerns, emergencies, and disasters. Establishing mechanisms and processes to ensure the adoption, reprogramming, and/or the continuity of programs that address the gender-differentiated needs of women during pandemics and other public health concerns, emergencies, and disasters.

Inclusive and sustainable rural development

  • Magna Carta of Young Farmers. Promoting the social and economic well-being of young farmers by developing their skills and capabilities and eliminating discrimination against them by recognizing, protecting, fulfilling, and promoting their rights.
  • National Land Use Act. Institutionalizing a just, holistic, and ethical planning for using and protecting the country’s land and water resources.
  • Completion of land acquisition and distribution. Allowing cases where there is an existing Notice of Coverage to proceed with finality even beyond the expiration of funding for the agrarian reform program.
  • Creation of Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. Creation of a Department of Ocean, Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, which will manage, conserve, and develop our fisheries and aquatic  resources and rationalize all ocean sector initiatives within our jurisdiction.
  • Creation of Local Housing Boards. Providing an administrative machinery at the local level to effect the full implementation of the UDHA, cope with the fast pace of urbanization in the country and institutionalize multisectoral representation in local housing initiatives.

Tobacco control

  • Creation of smoke-free environments. Protection from the dangers of tobacco smoke and exposure to secondhand smoke by expanding the determination of public places and enclosed spaces where smoking is banned and removing indoor designated smoking areas.
  • Increasing taxes on tobacco products and novel tobacco products. Decreasing Filipinos’ risks of having non-communicable diseases through prohibitive price by imposing higher taxes on tobacco products and  earmarking revenues from these to fund universal health care.
  • Stringent regulation of electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products. Stringent regulation of electronic nicotine/non-nicotine delivery systems (ENDS/ENNDS) and heated tobacco products (HTP) through a comprehensive law that will strictly regulate the packaging, use, sale, distribution, and advertisements of these harmful products – banning access of young people below 25 years old to these products, banning all flavors, banning advertisements, and mandating the Food and Drug Administration as the regulatory body.
  • Raising the age restriction for purchase and use of any tobacco product. Protecting young people from harm, especially during the completion of their brain development and maturity until the age of 25, by raising the age restriction for accessing any tobacco product from 18 to 25 years old.

Clean air and renewable energy

  • Review of Clean Air Act. Exercise of congressional oversight on the implementation of the Clean Air Act to address the worsening state of air quality in the Philippines and ensure compliance with the World Health Organization’s Air Quality Guidelines.
  • Ensuring full implementation and protection of the Renewable Energy Act. Exercise of congressional oversight on the implementation of the Renewable Energy Act to ensure the development of renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind, and water to transition to renewable and more sustainable energy and veer away from coal powered plants and gas as fuel for power generation.

Protection of the rights of people forced to flee and stateless persons

  • Protection of the rights of internally displaced persons. Ensuring that all citizens enjoy their rights in all circumstances, including in situations of internal displacement, by institutionalizing measures that will reduce the risk of displacement and prevent cases of arbitrary displacement and will support those who are displaced toward their return to their communities or resettlement and reintegration.
  • Comprehensive protection of the rights of refugees, stateless persons, and asylum seekers. Protection of the rights and obligations of persons of concerns or refugees, stateless persons, asylum seekers, and populations at risk of statelessness; institutionalization of the Refugee and Stateless Status Determination Procedure; and establishment of a designated office on refugee protection and statelessness matters.
  • Facilitated administrative naturalization. Expediting the process, reducing costs, and providing special consideration of the available durable solutions for recognized refugees and stateless persons, particularly with regard to the requirements for administrative naturalization.
  • Gender-responsive amendments to naturalization laws. Addressing gendered distinctions in terms of conferral and acquisition or retainment of citizenship by amending the following: (1) Article 15 of the Commonwealth Act 473 or the Revised Naturalization Law,which denies a married woman the right to choose her nationality following the naturalization of her husband, and (2) Section 12 of Republic Act 9139 or the Administrative Naturalization Law of 2000, which prevents married women who have been granted Philippine citizenship through naturalization from conferring her nationality to her husband.