The Philippine Online Chronicles

After an unsuccessful attempt to land a senatorial post in the 2007 elections, Atty. Adrian Sison (Dado Sison) is back with his second bid for the same position. Today, as he did three years ago, he is running under the Ang Kapatiran Party, with the same platform of governance, optimism and sense of purpose.

A product of the Ateneo de Manila University from his primary to tertiary education, Sison later took up Law in the University of the Philippines. As an educator, he taught in English Literature and Journalism in San Beda High School Broadcasting and Telecommunications policy in Ateneo and currently teaches Business Law at Assumption College. As a lawyer, he acted as Legal Assistant to Constitutional Commissioner Edmundo Garcia; served as Confidential Attorney to the Court of Appeals; Chief of Staff Representative Teresa Aquino-Oreta; Legal Department Manager of Associated Broadcasting Company; Assistant Vice President of ICC Telecommunications; a Legal Assistant at the McManus Law Office in Melbourne, Australia; became an associate at Mario Ongkiko Law Office, then later Senior Associate Misa Law Office and at present the Adrian Consulting Law Office.  Among his notable achievements as Legal Assistant to Commissioner Garcia is the Creation of the Human Rights Commission, the abolition of the death penalty and the creation of the Nuclear weapons provision in the 1987 Constitution.

With a bit of Internet sleuthing, I came across the podcast transcript of a 2007 interview of Atty. Sison with the Philippine Daily Inquirer. It was a longish but interesting interview. Next I did was call him on phone for an almost one-hour interview, the highlights of which I will be sharing with you. His stand in 2007 on most issues remains the same till the current time.

Asked why he was running for senator, Atty. Sison quickly pointed to the admittedly strict principles of the Ang Kapatiran Party as his underlying reasons.  He specifically mentioned that he was aspiring for only one term of office, being of the belief that “six years is long enough to do a good job.” Of his former Taxation and Land Reform Professor, PGMA, he did not mince words and said outright that he would give her a failing grade for approving the WTO agreement when she was still a senator. He said PGMA is a BIG disappointment. Even if she were telling the truth now or doing the right thing, people will not believe her, given her zero or negative credibility.

Atty. Sison appears to be well-versed with the many issues besetting the country, and this is belied by his straightforward answers to some difficult queries on what he thought were the economic problems of the country, how he was going to push for his agenda in Senate, his position on gay rights and charter change.

He mentioned food security, income and justice as the three most important economic problems faced by the country—these three are personal to him as addition to Ang Kapatiran’s objectives.  With reference to food security, he points to the example of Thailand, where food is cheap and there is full irrigation. He laments that lack of full irrigation of farmlands in the Philippines, which is a primarily agricultural country, cartels, lack of farm to market roads, corruption, and the allocation of a huge percentage of the national budget to debt servicing are some hindering factors.

Atty. Sison wants to slash 25% to 50% of the budget for debt servicing, citing the example of Argentina, which stopped payment for 2 yrs. He proposed to drop the budget for debt servicing to 10%, not the way Argentina did. On this score, I am totally in agreement with him.  We spend too much on debt servicing, and with greater concessions and leeway from our foreign creditors, we could use the amounts saved for other projects.

With respect to justice, he notes that the 30% shortage for filled up posts in the judicial system is partly due to the low salaries of judges, which makes them prone to corruption. With respect to income, he said that the poor economy makes it conducive for Filipinos to leave the country, and that they leave in droves, much to the detriment of our local hospitals and other industries. To discourage the diaspora of Filipino workers, he would like to encourage employers to increase the salaries of employees; to implement profit sharing schemes with their employees; making stock market rules simpler in order to encourage more investments in local companies. Profit sharing will make the worker a stakeholder in the business, and not a mere cog in a capitalist business venture. There is no wealth distribution opportunity in the country. For this, he encourages the SMEs, which are mostly family corporations to start with their key employees by give them shares.

Asked how he was going to push for his agenda, given that his voice would only be one of the 24 voices in Senate, he answered that this is not impossible with the power of persuasion and reason, pointing to his experience as legal counsel for Commissioner Ed Garcia, one of the 48 commissioners in the drafting of the present Constitution. It was through his efforts that the provisions on the Commission on Human Rights (ours is the only constitution in the world that contains a provision on Commission on Human Rights) and the abolition of death penalty made its way to our present Constitution. In fact, he was called the “49^th commissioner” because of his contributions.

Atty. Sison is for crafting laws for the gay community, but notes the difficulties of defining the term “gay” for legal purposes.  He believes it is wrong to discriminate against persons who are different, like gays, and is all for granting gays the right to adopt children, but will not go as far as to grant gay persons the right to marry.

For the males—here this! Atty. Sison wants to enhance RA 9262 ("Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act of 2004"), which is not currently implemented properly—this act protects only women and minor children (this includes males up to the age of 19). It does not cover males battered by their spouses (at least 10% of the total male population). In this score, Atty. Sison proposes equal protection for males as well.

Asked his position on Charter Change, he said that there is a time and a place to amend the Constitution but that now is not the right time to do so.  On climate change, Atty. Sison says that climate change is a given. What we can do is to educate people on disaster preparedness, disseminate information, what to do and where to go, and for the poor people to have access to weather reports that could be announced locally over the radio, at least every 30 minutes.

Asked what he thinks the government should do to stop the killing of journalists and left-wing activists, he points to the maintenance of a database and intelligence gathering, strengthening and funding the witness protection program, and the strengthening of preventive measures.

His message:  “Do not let the survey determine your vote. Create a matrix of the candidates and the key issues. Rate them based on (1) what they say, (2) what their parties stand for, and (3) their past action and inaction, and then vote for the candidate based on your values.”

On the whole, I would say that we have in the person of Atty. Adrian Sison a well-meaning albeit unpopular senatorial aspirant. He has consistently shown adherence to his party’s clear, though rather strict, platform of governance (something which could not be said of other candidates, whether for a senatorial post or otherwise); ability and experience to become a senator; determination and a healthy dose of optimism, given his odds in 2010 senatorial race. Whether the 2010 elections will be the season for Sison this time around, one can only hope for the best.

Atty. Adrian Sison blogs at http://adrian.i.ph/

Photo taken from his blog.