Jose de Venecia III, son of House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., has called on fellow Filipinos, especially those with relatives in the United States, to write their US congressmen and senators to lobby for the passage of the Jubilee Act for Expanded Debt Cancellation and Responsible Lending.

This pending law before the US Congress proposes to cancel billions of dollars worth of debts by developing countries around the world, particularly those in Africa.

The young De Venecia , who was here as guest speaker of the Rotary Club inter-city meeting Tuesday night, explained that the Jubilee Act cancels impoverished country’s debt with the US government, prohibits harmful economic and policy conditions on debt cancellation, mandates transparency and responsibility in lending from governments and international financial institutions, calls for a new legal framework to restrict the activities of predatory “vulture funds”.

It also calls for a US audit of debts resulting from odious and illegitimate lending.

“Imagine if we, the Philippines, a major important ally of the United States in Asia that needs to a lot more than half its annual budget for debt payments, more than half of them with the US government and banks, will benefit from the cancellation of a US indebtedness that was used to build a major white elephant in the Philippines by a corrupt President or other corrupt Philippine politicians?” he said.

De Venecia, who was recently thrown into the political limelight following his expose before congress on the controversial ZTE deal between China and the Philippine government, also urged congressmen and senators to organize meetings with their American counterparts to convince them that the Philippines needs this debt reduction scheme to become an even more significant partner of the US.#

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