HOTSPOT Instead of being the issue, why not be a champion of issues this 2020? The new year challenges you to be inspired, instead of getting fed up. Here are six issues where you could be an influencer or ambassador of this 2020:

1. Mass transportation — We must challenge and discard the logic and language of exclusion and exclusivity regarding mass transportation. The state and corporations have always tried to put the private motorist and private contractor at the center of transportation, at the expense of millions. Self-serving and profit-oriented at the core, this mindset created the transport crisis we are in right now. The challenge here is to provide millions the cheapest, fastest, and most energy-efficient means to move about and to transport goods and services. Let’s put the “masses” at the center of mass transportation, and by masses we mean the minimum-wage earners, those looking for a job, students, professionals, PWDs, and seniors.

2. “Universal health care” — Yes, in quotes. Because while we already have a law supposedly guaranteeing it, there’s still no immediate prospect for enjoying it. What’s been clearly rolled out are PhilHealth premium increases, and higher sin taxes for tobacco. While there are no substantial increases in state budgets for public hospitals, oligarchs and Big Businesses gobble up small and medium-sized private hospitals. It seems the so-called “universal health care” is more about ensuring profits for the private hospitals, big pharma and big private insurance. It seems the new law aims to make us hate the idea of “universal health care.” Real universal health care should be about getting rid of payments at points-of-access, unfair pricing, excessive premiums, unfair terms of contracts with and others.

3. Job security — If we want to raise the quality and standard of living of millions of hardworking Filipinos, one sure way is to get rid of contractualization and “Endo.” This practice keeps millions poor and destitute, while at the same time enriching the already-rich contractors and oligarchs.  Regularization would ensure million would have stable jobs. Government should be a good example by stopping itself from practicing contractualization in all state offices. If you’re a member of a union, ask your union to organize the contractual workers and to include their regularization in the union’s demands. If you’re not a member of a union, join or help form one. Workers should be more organized in order to negotiate collective bargaining agreements, wage and salary increases, and other benefits.

4. Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression — The more people we fully and unconditionally include in the benefits of citizenship, the fairer and more prosperous we become. The passage of the Anti-Discrimination Bill will unleash the productive force and creative of the lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender Filipinos whose full participation in society is thwarted by acts, structures, and policies of discrimination, hate and exclusion. A growing number of families, companies, and communities have seen the damaging effects of discrimination, and have in fact discarded it in favor of embracing LGBT members as no less Filipino. The Philippines must be next. We must win the passage of the ADB or the SOGIE Bill, and the fight starts anew in every home, office, school, town, city, and province. Let us create and mobilize a national constituency to compel Congress and the President to pass the ADB or the SOGIE Bill into law.

5. Solidarity with the Lumad and other national minorities — The plunder of Mindanao’s natural resources, the agreement on the Kaliwa Dam, and the resurrection of the Chico Dam are summoning the fighting spirit of our national minorities and demand our national solidarity with them. We have a lot to know and learn from the Dumagat and the Igorot peoples. They have long fought and survived past colonial rules and the current neocolonial state in preserving their culture, customs and tradition. They are the guardians of many of our remaining national patrimony, forests, and mountains.

6. Support for Filipino athletes — The stellar performance of our national athletes in the 30th Southeast Asian Games should compel us to separate their legitimate demands and interests from officials who corrupt and steal state sports funds supposedly intended to benefit national athletes. The scandals in the SEA Games 2019 hosting should be fully investigated, and the culprits charged. Let us demand that Congress look into the system and schedule of allowances for national athletes, and into the use of state sports funds for their training and development.

Of course, there are many other issues to champion -- land reform and agriculture; urban renewal and mass housing; human rights and due process; Philippine languages, music, films, theater, culture, and history; Overseas Filipino Workers and the continuing diaspora; and Filipino entrepreneurship and innovation. Those are another six to choose from. If you pick an issue or two now, immerse yourself in campaigns, integrate with our people, maybe use doses of humor, and often speak courageously for others —  there’s a huge chance you’d be a great champion by the end of 2020. What better use of clout is there than to offer it to our people and to advance their issues?