Gordon urges Vanguard to support "text-for-change" bill

Independent Senator Richard J. Gordon called on the officers and members of the Vanguard of the Philippine Constitution Inc. (VCPI) to support his "text-for-change" bill that would rehabilitate and improve the country's health and educational system.

Gordon urged the group supporting the 1987 Philippine Constitution to endorse Senate Bill 2402, the Health and Education Acceleration Program (HEAP) Corporation, which he authored, noting that education is supposedly the country's priority according to the Charter.

"You know that education is No. 1 in our Constitution. There are 15 provisions in the Constitution that say education must be given top national priority. And yet, when you look at our country, we lack more than 57,000 classrooms," he said.

Gordon, chairman of the Senate committee on government corporations and public enterprises, said his bill aims to create HEAP Corporation that would lead the rehabilitation and acceleration of the country's educational and health systems.

"Senate President (Juan Ponce) Enrile has signed up on that bill. House Speaker (Prospero) Nograles has also signed up on that bill. I am optimistic that you will also support the 'text-for-change' bill," he said.

In proposing HEAP, Gordon said he is challenging giant telecommunications companies (telcos) to remit, without passing the brunt to consumers, a portion of their annual net revenue from local Short Message System (SMS) to the HEAP fund.

The fund will be used to finance the backlogs in the educational and health care system in the more than 43,000 public schools nationwide, including at least four million seats, 63 million textbooks, 39,000 teachers and 8,000 principals.

"I am challenging the telcos to remit ten percent of their revenue to allow us to educate our people," he said.

"When they do that, they will even be secured in the future because the fruits of a better educational system can be the people running their company into a global giant not just in the Philippines but also in the entire world," he added.

According to the National Telecommunications Commission, there are approximately two billion text messages sent a day.

Gordon said that if the proposed HEAP Corporation would get 10 percent from the telcos' text messaging revenues, that would amount to P200 million a day or P73 billion a year, which is more than enough to fill all the gaps in health and education infrastructures in just a year's time.