Elections are coming. If you are a voter, you should know who you are voting for and where they stand, especially when it comes to issues of secularism. Here are senatorial candidate Koko Pimentel’s responses on nine important issues, based on GMA News’ Mga Isyu ng Bayan.
Reproductive Health – AGAINST
“I disagree with committing billions of pesos just to buy consumables, condom, pill, injectable, IUD. Billions every year, how do you audit the use? And then it was packaged as a health measure in the Senate, in the House I think they were openly presenting it as a population measure but in the Senate it was packaged as a health measure so if it is a health measure how come the focus was on lowering the number of live births, why not just focus on the number of maternal deaths?”
Sin Tax – FOR
“Because I believe the taxing power can be used to modify behavior and that behavior that we want our people to modify is their smoking behavior and the heavy drinking. So they will think twice before engaging in a such a useless activity as smoking, while what we are trying to discourage is heavy drinking plus driving while drunk. So I agree with the use of the taxing power to modify behavior.”
Cybercrime – FOR
“Because the law introduces new crimes aside from reinforcing existing crimes or offenses, it introduces new crimes made possibly by the Internet age and the use of computers… But what I failed to notice was the takedown provision that amounted to censorship, which is unconstitional in our constitutional scheme.”
Freedom of Information – FOR
“Ang FOI palagi kong dine-describe parang hangin na dumaan sa Senado because ako, I cannot understand why the controversy or the objection to the FOI when the Philippine Constitution encourages transparency.”
Anti-Political Dynasty – FOR
“Ako kasi I will advise people not to talk of good or bad political dynasties anymore because if we ban political dynasties by law we should be willing to say goodbye even to the good dynasties. Because who will be the ultimate judge of whether the dynasties are good are bad? It’s also the people so balik din tayo sa eleksyon. How would we know the sentiment of the people except election. But I am in favor of giving life to Section 26, Article 2 of the Constitution sa anti-political dynasty because it is a mandate, it is a command.”
Divorce – NO STAND
“I used to be rabidly against divorce, but because of a personal experience, I am now more open or I will maintain an open mind to the issue. But I will not be a proponent of divorce. I will have an open mind and will listen to the proponents but the proponents must explain in detail what they have in mind because if what they have in mind is the American-style divorce all the way up to what they call no-contest divorce, ang ibig sabihin no’n we will divorce because we decided to divorce. I mean that’s too much.”
Death Penalty – AGAINST
“The purpose of death penalty is you go to the extreme. It’s an extreme penalty to deter the commission of crimes eh wala eh, there is no study that the existence of death penalty as well as the imposition of death penalty have deterred the commission of crimes by another person, wala eh. So what’s the point? Life imprisonment, the harshest punishment, should suffice.”
Same-Sex Marriage – AGAINST
“I think that is a joke of a proposal. I don’t know where that idea came from, but marriage is between a man and a woman so maybe the laws can be liberalized in such a way that the property relations of people of the same sex who decided to live together can be governed by law but let us not call that marriage. Madali naman yan sa partnership, we can let the government code govern that or the laws on partnership, not the family code.”
Total Gun Ban – FOR
“Very good idea but impossible to implement. Total gun ban you only have it in metropolitan areas, how about in the ARMM, how about in Ilocos Norte, in Ilocandia. It’s a good idea although I find or I believe it will be difficult to implement, let us study it and maybe use Japan as the model. In Japanese society they do not allow guns except for law enforces yata. I am for responsible gun ownership in the meantime.”
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Who among the 33 senatorial candidates matches your views best? Politi-ko.com can help you find out. (From the makers of Rollcall.ph)
