TOGETHER Everybody Achieves More (TEAM) Unity is the umbrella coalition of the administration-backed senatorial line-up for the 2007 elections. Its mainstream party members are the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (flagship/main partner); Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino; Liberal Party (Atienza Wing); Nationalist People’s Coalition (Cojuangco Wing); Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino; and Partido Demokratiko Sosyalista ng Pilipinas.
Its party-list members are: Association of Philippine Electric Cooperatives; Alagad; Ang Laban ng Indiginong Filipino; Luzon Farmers Party; Veterans Freedom Party; Cooperative NATCO Network Party; Alliance of Volunteer Educators; and Sarangani Reconciliation and Reformation Organization.
CAMPAIGN WEBSITE
CAMPAIGN PLATFORM
The mandate to serve is a grace given by the sovereign.
The terms of service, however, should be spelled writ large in a contract with the people.
By detailing our program of action, the people will be given the chance to scrutinize the things we vow to do for them upon which they will hopefully rest their decision if we are worthy of their vote.
This plan distills what our nation needs, and crystallizes diverse and creative solutions to the challenge of achieving high growth in our land and lasting peace in our time.
Every plank in our platform was hewn by the sector or the region that underpins the broad makeup of our coalition.
Our program, we would like to stress, is not a collage of newly minted prose which has yet to be put to action. Rather, ours is built on the great strides the government has done in promoting the welfare of our people and securing their future.
These achievements cannot be denied, not even by people whose vision is clouded by the political wool covering their eyes.
We have crafted our agenda with our children in mind. This election is about their future, and the choices are clear: Whether we cancel our gains, and backslide to the bad old days of misgovernance, or take the high but hard road that will hurtle us to a society we can bequeath to our young with pride.
We have taken the first step by taking painful measures which see to it that we are living within our means and not charging our expenses today to the mortgaged future of our children.
This we do in our hope that in the future they will remember us with a debt of gratitude and not simply for the debt that we had left behind.
As we make life easier for them, we would also like to enjoy the fruits of our sacrifices now.
This is the central core of our pledge: to assure that the social payback from economic growth that our people deserve will be given them, how the rebates will be delivered, and how the reimbursements will be made.
Yes, this is a catalogue of programs, but beyond the bill of particulars of projects, is the main objective of making social
investments that will make our people educated and healthy, and our economy strong and resilient.
Only by directing state resources to activities that will unlock our full potential as a people can we build, not just a competitive
society but a caring one as well.
We will put food on our schoolchildren’s desks, books in their hands, and more teachers in classrooms whose number will be increased.
We will deploy more cops, give them more patrol cars, so when they pass a grateful citizenry safe in their homes, the latter will say
There by our grace go the taxes we pay.
We will provide health insurance for more people as well as medicines that are more in number but lower in price.
We will bring more water to more farmlands and more farmers out of the bondage of the soil, and coax more food out of the latter.
We will realize a million dreams of a college diploma, and to the intrepid among them, the capital to attain their dream of starting on
their own.
We will supply more armor and arms to those who guard our freedom as we buttress the cause of justice with more courthouses and court personnel.
We will hire more prosecutors to run after crooks who dare to run away with the people’s money.
We will send more consuls to distant shores so wherever he or she is a citizen in distress will have help within reach and a safe place to go.
We will subsidize our trains so they can run on time as we meet our schedule of laying more tracks in front of them.
We will lengthen runways of our airports and deepen our ports so both our people and their produce can move fast and safe, across borders.
We will build more roads to show our people that express payment of taxes do result in more expressways.
We will expand the reach of the other highway, the information highway, as more computers will be put in schools, so our young will
know how to navigate the road ahead that is paved in digits and pixels; and, in courts, in police stations and in public buildings,
too, though not for government employees to render virtual reality service but to extend real one.
We will survey more lands so government can delineate those that can be released to the landless now and those it will retain and regreen in trust for those who will come after us.
We will modernize the way we hold elections and count our votes so the will of the people will be reflected fully and reported on time and so that ballot tallies will no longer be written in blood.
We will pour more money into our towns, cities and provinces because we believe that those who are closer to the people are in the best position to know and meet their needs.
We will build a tourism infrastructure around our world-class, natural assets, our places of history and our hospitable people. We will aim for 10 million tourists by 2010.
We will modernize our technology, telecommunications and information backbone to put them in sync with the Knowledge Society and a globe flattened by great technological strides. The scope and breadth of the modernization work will cut across all regions.
We will take the regional lead in the development of alternatives to fossil fuel, using breakthrough and frontier technologies but drawing from out indigenous resources and energy-generating crops.
We will do whatever it takes to end insurrections and insurgencies, secure lasting peace for the country, still the guns of bitter wars and make the country a nation of brothers, and sisters.
We will protect our farms and industries from the savage side of globalization through safety nets, competitive enhancement measures and skillful international negotiations.
We will champion both the interests of labor and business, make labor complementary to business and business congenial and appreciative of the honest toil of labor.
We will dream the big dream, fight the good fight for our country and people.