PGMA's Speech during the 27th General Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Bishop's-Businessmen's Conference for Human Development

PGMA's Speech during the 27th General Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Bishop's-Businessmen's Conference for Human Development

NBC Tent, Fort Bonifacio Global City, Taguig (08 July 2003)

Thank you very much, Secretary Concepcion.

I also thank His Eminence Cardinal Vidal for welcoming me to this assembly: most Reverend Ramon Villena, National Co-Chairman; I see the name of Pong Biazon but I don't see him; Ric Pascua; Dr. Mangahas; Archbishop Quevedo; I think Michail Mastura is not here anymore. Oh, still there; Ting Jaime; Dr. Oquist; Bishop Ledesma; Governor Hussin; Ambassador Dee; Excellencies of the diplomatic corps; distinguished participants of the Bishops-Businessmen's Conference for Human Development; Ladies and gentlemen, Good Morning.

Thank you once again for inviting me to be with you. We have been together for many, many years now. The Bishops-Businessmen's Conference has been here for many, many years now. And whenever I have a chance to attend, even before I became president, I always joined you because I believe the Bishop's-Businessmen's Conference is a representative of the conscience of our people.

During Martial Law, you were the voice of temperance and peaceful resistance. Since then, you have come a long way, you have become staunch advocates of many causes now, including and especially the cause of Mindanao. But also in many other ways, the promotion of social justice. The promotion of the equitable distribution of the nation's wealth.

I like to join your annual assembly because for me it is a time like an annual retreat or an annual day of recollection for reflecting on one of the main components of our battle against poverty, and one of the main components of our quest for good governance, and that is the improvement of moral standards in government and society.

To improve moral standards, there are many things that we must do. But one of them is to help honest people get elected through electoral reform. I say this because the leaders of the Bishop's-Businessmen's conference have also been the staunches for electoral reform, and I want to go back to that compass. I want to go back to what we were saying together - "High-tech na boto, ito ang susi ng pagbabago." And that came from many of the leaders of the Bishop's-Businessmen's Conference.

That is why this year, in the midst of deficit problems last year, in the midst of threats to peace and order, in the midst of the terrorist threat, the SARS threat I took the giant leap of making available the financing needed to fully computerize the quick and accurate counting and tabulation of votes in the 2004 and subsequent elections.

I say this because hardly anybody seems to be talking about it anymore. And there's a lot that needs to be done to make sure that this money so difficultly put together will really result in the modernization of our electoral system.

And I want to take this opportunity, speaking before the bishops and the businessmen who are leaders also in the religious community, I want to ask for your support in making the system work, because after all you work long and hard for it. And I was only your instrument as a faithful daughter of the church to make sure the facilities are made available. The money is there but many milestones must be met, many advocacies must be advanced, much education must be made on the many elements of electoral modernization if we want to see the elections of May 2004 as a time when we cross a bold new threshold in democracy by cleaning up the voting process.

Just to give you an update, we have seen in the newspapers that the COMELEC was able to bid out the computerization systems on time, just in the nick of time. And I don't think we should do the rest of the steps just in the nick of time. I have assigned our Secretary of Science and Technology, Nina Alabastro to work closely with the COMELEC to make sure that the specific system for counting votes is technically above board, responsive to our needs and adherent to the high standards of integrity we want to preserve. But beyond assigning Nina Alabastro to help the COMELEC technically, I cannot do much beyond that because COMELEC is constitutionally independent of the Executive. That's why monitoring the milestones, doing the advocacies and the alertness, providing the education and information are more properly done by civil society, including the church, rather than by the administration. And I propose that in the middle of the great work that you are doing for our society, for Mindanao, please do not forget that these activities related to the modernization of elections should be a major task of the Bishop's-Businessmen's Conference this year and next year.

Again, to give you a report, the first batch of automated counting machines will arrive on August 5th this year. The COMELEC is setting up a testing site for the machines and will put these through a grueling set of tests to make sure that they are hardy and worthy. And I believe it would be proper for the Bishop-Businessmen's Conference to do the advocacies rather than the administration to make sure that all parties, including NAMFREL, are represented in these tests. And to do the advocacies and exercise the alertness to make sure that we obviate any misunderstanding or misperceptions about how the counting machines work.

I look forward to that historic day in May next year when these automated counting machines will be first touched by Filipino hands. This will be one of our great legacies to suffrage, and I would once again want to acknowledge that it was the leaders of the Bishop-Businessmen's Conference from a long time ago that began the journey.

You will work for these electoral reforms in the same way that you have been working for other reforms to improve governance and to improve moral standards in government and society. In all these, you also impose upon yourselves, because you're working to improve not only moral standards in government but moral standards in society in the business community. As your consensus statement says, the new of man, the total development of man - that is what we must all look for, and that is what we must reflect on as we go about meeting the many challenges of today.

The encyclical on the development of people states that peace cannot be limited to a mere absence of war, peace is something that is built up day after day in pursuit of an order intended by God, which implies a more perfect form of justice among men, and it is on reflecting on the meaning of peace, in the context of the total development of man, that I reflect on the policies that we must follow regarding the different threats to peace.

On the NPA, the government will move on two priority areas: first, we will conduct a political, social and economic audit on the 500 or so 'influenced' barangays identified by the intelligence community and determine a specific set of military or developmental countermeasures to extricate these poverty-stricken barangays from the grip of dissidents second, we will identify and expose the growing number of front organizations of the CPP-NPA-NDF and cut their links from domestic and foreign funding sources. We will mount a full court press on the security and developmental components of this threat, even as we leave the door open to peace talks based on constitutional, democratic participation.

We condemn the series of assassination attempts of municipal executives. Especially as they have happened already for the fourth time in the last several weeks. The DILG secretary is instructed to conduct a full investigation of this incident.

On the MILF, we are open to the suspension of the court warrants if this is necessary to move the peace talks forward. But the MILF must not tarry on the procedural issues involved, especially so that it has several lawyers and legal advisers among its ranks. We continue to build confidence in the peace process and we're preparing for the opening of talks. We must avoid being bogged down by these matters.

On the drug war, the intelligence community maintains a list of the most notorious drug lords and their coddlers. That list will be disclosed in due time as information is gathered on these personalities, I want the people to know the face of the enemy, who should not be allowed to move around freely under a cloak of legitimacy. Drug lords must be exposed for what they are - destroyers of our future. Our crusade must be relentless and encompassing.

These are the challenges to our peace and the order of our society that we must face even as we try to move forward to bring about fundamental reform in the electoral process, in the affirmative action for Mindanao. As we try to achieve these, positive reforms in the midst of many threats to our society, we must work harder now amidst the complexity of challenges and the ever changing face of crisis. But I am grateful that there are bishops and there are businessmen who look to God for guidance in the way they run their businesses and lead their communities.

May God guide you, May God guide us through the fields of change and give us a good harvest of opportunities to make the people of God closer to the heaven that he wants us to enjoy.

Thank you and congratulations!

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