PGMA's Speech during the De La Salle University Symposium with the President's Lecture on "The Politics of Economic Crisis'

PGMA's Speech during the De La Salle University Symposium with the President's Lecture on "The Politics of Economic Crisis'

De Las Alas Hall, De La Salle University Dasmariñas, Cavite (13 Nov. 2003)

Thank you.

Thank you, Brother Rolly Dizon, one of La Salle's many outstanding contributions to my administration.

You know, I'll have to tell you the story of how Brother Rolly became the Chairman of CHED. I have a search committee that helps me spruces possibilities for my presidential appointments. Of course, in the end, it's my prerogative, it's my duty to choose the best. Sometimes I choose from among the nominees of the search committee, sometimes I don't. And when the last CHED chair has already retired. In fact, she held over for a while the search committee was doing its work.

Finally, they came to their short list and they submitted the short list to me. Well, you know, as president as much as possible, my schedule is like this: 10:00 to 3:00, I do public affairs like this; 3:00 down, I do paperwork. That's when I go to my desk and attend to these things. And so, I had a pile of papers, among them was the short list of the nominees for CHED. Okey, so I put it there, and from the short list, I made a tentative note -- okey, from this one appoint this person. So that the secretary of my search committee would then prepare the papers for appointment. And then I was going over on my other papers in my incoming box then I saw the invitation from Brother Rolly Dizon inviting me to his retirement from La Salle. remember that time... And I said, this is the CHED chair while this one is being nominated by God, because the retirement invitation came on the same day that the short list came. It was an addition to my short list and I chose that addition to my short list. And I have no regrets that Brother Dizon is now CHED chair.

I would like to introduce some of the other members of my official family who are with us today. We have a resident of Cavite, Secretary Marita Jimenez. then we have my youngest Cabinet member, closest in age to you my audience, Secretary Mike Defensor. we have my Presidential Assistant for Education Mona Valisno. you know, because education has CHED, has DepEd, even has TESDA who runs the technical schools, I don't believe in a committee system that puts them all together. Because then you only do your work during committee meetings not in between. Well, when you have different agencies handling a common field, I would rather have it coordinated out of Malacañang by a presidential assistant, and that's WHAT MONA does.

I would like also to acknowledge the presence of the number one provincial board member of Cavite, Dominic Tolentino. and I would like to greet all of you and thank you for your welcome headed by Dr. Herminia Torres. Thank you very much, Dr. Torres. she and you are my host, not brother Rolly. He is now my co-guest.

I think it's a very important day for us to be all here. A very important moment in our current events and our history.

After the impeachment controversy was constitutionally resolved, the peso rallied close to 55.17 to one dollar last Tuesday, up almost 20 centavos from last Monday's rate. But after yesterday's protests against that resolution, the peso went down again. You can see, therefore, that the first day was clearly influenced by the positive market sentiment following the coming together of the three branches of government in an expression of faith in each other and in a stable national future. And then very clearly, yesterday's market was a reaction to those who wish to undermine that stability. This is a clear example of the relation between politics and the economy.

Our historic problem has been the need for economic development to fight poverty. Our fundamental problem of our country is poverty. And our historic problems cannot be blamed on any single president or individual, because the problems are fundamental, caused by our economic and political system.

We inherited a weak state -- that's why i keep talking about a strong republic. We want to strengthen the republic which is the antithesis of the weak state that we have inherited -- this weak state is one in which dominant classes or sectors have controlled or shaped its policies, especially those dealing with the economy.

And so, therefore, as a result of this dominance of the privileged classes dominating economic and political policy, there exist a large gap between the rich and the poor which has been exploited for political ends. This large gap is exploited by the NPA, this large gap between the very poor in Muslim Mindanao and the better off in the rest of the Philippines or even maybe in Christian Mindanao has also been exploited by the secessionist. This gap between the rich and the poor, where many of the poor were identified with EDSA 3, and many of the intellectuals or elite were identified with EDSA 2, have also been exploited by those who want to reverse the gains of EDSA 2.

But even outside of those very dramatic cleavages in our society caused by those who exploit the gap between the rich and the poor, the political system itself has been based on patronage, and ultimately at the extreme, on corruption to support patronage. And lately, the use of destabilization, black propaganda and character assassination have become tools of the political trade. What a contrast from the time when my father, Diosdado Macapagal, first run for Congress in 1949.

At that time, my father was a diplomat, a career diplomat working in Washington, and President Quirino was the president. There was a communists insurgency going on. They had their members of Congress and in the first district of Pampanga, the congressman was a communist, but he was a poet communist. And President Quirino decided that he needed a charismatic brilliant young man to challenge this incumbent. So, he brought my father back from Washington. My father was also a poet, he wrote Sarsuelas. So, there were two poets running against each other and they conducted their campaigns by reciting poetry in their respective platforms.

Anyway, my father won. It doesn't mean he was the better poet, but I'm just pointing out that at that time, they could talk issues and couched this talk in poetry. Today, the issues are muddled by character assassination, black propaganda, destabilization. And this is again a manifestation of the weakness of our state.

Because we are not yet a strong state, historically, our economic development has been slow compared to our neighbors. That's why it should be a source of pride to us that during this Asian crisis and especially in the last two years of my administration, we did better than our neighbors, especially again, I said, during the last two and a half years. For instance, in the first 6 months of this year, we achieved a 4.8 percent GNP growth rate. And among the 21 member economies of APEC, we have the sixth highest growth rate among our neighbors. And that growth rate of ours in the first six months of this year was the highest growth rate that we achieved since the 1997 Asian crisis. So, we've done gains despite the weakness of our state.

And, in so short a time of the two and a half years, we accomplished -- and my youngest Cabinet member is somebody I should thank for that -- the most massive housing and urban land reform program undertaken in our history. In fact, after this meeting I will proceed to Paliparan, to again give lot entitlements to a 150 families who will join almost 300,000 other families who have gained the right to buy the land that they are occupying.

We won victories in pinning down corrupt high-ranking officials, director level, undersecretary level, some of them we were able to do because we did unprecedented lifestyle checks. We launched an all-out war against illegal drugs. In a few months time within 3 months of when I gave the first or allocated -- because I haven't all used it up -- one billion pesos that I found from the lotto earnings of the PCSO, we confiscated unprecedented volumes of illegal drugs, closed down an unprecedented number of large shabu factories, arrested big drug dealers who used to be untouchable before my administration. And I would like to -- wala siya dito -- si Boysie Rosales, our provincial director of the police here is one of the heroes of that campaign against illegal drugs.

So we have made gains in our fight against illegal drugs that outstrip by far the gains made in several years before. That's on the side of law enforcement. On the side of looking for peace, a peaceful resolution to the Muslim insurgency is within our grasp. We have a successful ceasefire going on with the MILF and we are on the way to signing a permanent peace agreement. We cut red tape to make sure crucial infrastructure are built. I asked some of your students here if you are from... All from Cavite, Dasmariñas, some of you are from Batangas. And the roll-on/roll-off ferry out of Batangas to Mindoro, to Panay island all the way to Mindanao has made travel very convenient for tourists going to Boracay but also for Mindanao-based agricultural products coming to manila. New bridges, new highways after many, many years of getting stuck in bureaucratic red tape, our south expressway is under construction again.

We began meaningful debates on changes in the constitution, particularly on the parliamentary and federal form of government. Government prosecutors won landmark decisions, a painful decision, landmark nonetheless, on the arrest of President Estrada. Long-awaited decisions lying for years in the courts on the Marcos wealth, the coconut levy, and at least in the Supreme Court to Kuratong Baleleng case. Sinabi ko, at least in the Supreme Court. Kasi alam rin naman natin ang nangyari ngayon sa lower court.

On the dismissal in the lower court of the Kuratong Baleleng case, as I have said time and again, we must abide by the rule of law. There is a process by which the parties will have to deal with the situation and we have to patiently go through it. Let justice forge on unsullied by too much noise and controversy.

Our enemies prefer to sow disunity so that they can wrest power from the people who become strong when the economy is strong. Our enemies do not want our people to be strong.

Fearing that our success, our successes that i enumerated partly in a few minutes ago, would frustrate their plans. Our enemies have resorted to machiavellian schemes in Oakwood, in 'hit-and run' exposes, in exploiting the emotions generated by the impeachment crisis and the NAIA siege.

I'm saddened that our people are obviously being misled out of desperation by some plotters of destabilization. In the spirit of democracy, a permit was given for yesterday's rally until 5 p.m., and maximum tolerance was observed during that time frame. Thereafter, Mayor Jojo Binay and the other authorities had to act to restore order in the streets. And they were called upon, they did their duty, they dispersed the rally. While we respect and uphold the full expression of civil rights, we cannot allow anyone to cross the line of public order because of the harm wrought upon the general welfare. And I thanked Mayor Binay for making that judgement call in the interest of public welfare.

On the other hand, nevertheless, I'm greatly dismayed by the way some unscrupulous political leaders are using the masses as cannon fodder, which deprives the latter of their dignity. We should have unity and reconciliation based on respect for the dignity of the masses and a healthy respect for their constructive role in society. There is a proper time and venue for partisan struggle and these are the elections of 2004.

In the more than two years of my presidency, I went through a learning curve. I gained the experience necessary to understand what we need to do in order to change society in a way that leads to economic development and the elimination of poverty.

And that is so important to work on that because with the region now starting to recover, even if we were ahead of them in the last two and a half years, our neighbors are now starting to accelerate their growth rate again. And this time, we cannot afford to be left behind as historically, we've been left behind.

To really develop our economy and create a stronger republic, we need to change our system, to institute true reforms in our way of politics and our economy. We also need to unify as a people.

Our enemies thrive on the deep social and political divisions that we now have. We need to heal these divisions within our society. Yes, we must have justice, but yes, we must have also reconciliation. We must put a closure to our past national divisions and give ourselves a fresh start, so that we can concentrate on changing society in a way that flourishes our future. So that we can give greater certainty to business and our investors who provide jobs for our people, because jobs for our people represent the most important and effective way to fight poverty.

Our programs in my administration are devoted to strengthening the economy. That's why we talked about our macroeconomic fundamentals being strong, our GNP growth rate, our deficit which is below the ceiling, our inflation rate below expectations, our interest rate also below projections. But that macroeconomic fundamental picture is only a precondition to the environment that will make the businessmen put their money where they can create jobs. And our economic policies, our government policies are also meant to encourage them. To encourage business activity unhampered by corruption and red tape in government.

I talked about housing. To build medium-cost housing, it used to take two years -- mike, for a permit? -- and 280 signatures. Thanks God if all the 280 signatories are honest. but this is what I mean by cutting corruption and red tape. And we've cut that down. And the housing sector has been responding -- 280 to 40. We'd like to reduce it some more but you can imagine what laws we have to change, or what floury of implementing rules we have to change, but at least, that this the housing sector tells us that we have the friendliest housing sector policies in a long time. And that's why they're building houses again.

Through all the political challenges that dominate the front pages and headlines, I have instructed the bureaucracy to stay on track in the task of governance -- they continue to do their work. During the last all saint's day holiday, I was listening to the radio and I heard congratulations from many of those who said that the traffic was less than in previous years including the traffic in the north expressway and the south expressway, and yet construction was going on in the north expressway and the south expressway. That's because the bureaucracy continued to work under my direction on the day to day things that we need to do to make life more convenient for our people.

That did not come by accident, we held a cabinet meeting to discuss how to improve traffic during that period. Traffic is not a triviality that we dismiss. In the APEC Summit, just to make sure that there would be no traffic, the government of Thailand gave a 10-day holiday, nobody was in Bangkok. And when I had a reunion of the 300 or so Filipinos who lived in Thailand, some of them came from Pattaya and Pukhet -- you know, where the beaches are -- and they said, "haayy, I'm so happy to be here in Bangkok with you because all the Thailanders are there in Pattaya and in Pukhet, and they're filling up the whole place. So crowded there." and so things like this, you know, these are everyday... Everyday life things that our bureaucracy must work on to make life better.

And to spur them to keep doing that, not to be distracted with what they read in headlines, I continue to keep a steady hand over the concerns of the state. I continue to hold meetings, to handle everyday things as well as to handle big things like reconciliation and reform. And that is what I would ask you and the people, to keep your eyes focused on the challenges we face daily. For you, the youth, the daily challenge is to prepare well, to study well, to prepare yourselves to run the economy of your generation. My father always used to tell me that when you say prepare, it means prepare intellectually and prepare morally. And that's why aside from studying well -- and you're so lucky to be in a school like La Salle -- it also means being vigilant in the face of threats to your moral fiber and productivity like the scourge of drugs which we consider a national security threat. And of course, let's not allow ruthless politics to distract us from the all important charge of nation building.

In the final analysis, it will be reform and reconciliation that will heal the wounds of our divisiveness. It will be reform and reconciliation that will allow us to move forward to flourish our future. And that is the great connection between politics and economy, between reconciliation and between prosperity.

And I hope you, the students of La Salle, especially here in Calabarzon will be the leaders in the next phase of reform and the continuing reconciliation that we all need. And I hope in your generation, you will be able to find the Philippines, at last, a strong republic.

Thank you.

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