PGMA's Speech during the Opening Program of the 18th Philippine Advertising Congress (PAC)

Auditorium, CAP Convention Center Camp John Hay, Baguio City (20 Nov. 2003)
Thank you, Secretary Afable.

Let me first greet my hosts in this Congress: Gabby Lopez, Congress Chairman; Cerge Remonde, ad board chairman; and the other members of the 18th Philippine Advertising Congress Organizing Committee.

Now, let me also greet our host in this city, Mayor Bernie Vergara, Mayor Maurice Domogan, members of the city council headed by Vice Mayor Tabanda, and our student volunteers from Baguio City.

Let me acknowledge my companions today, members of my Cabinet: Secretary Richard Gordon, Tourism; Secretary Marita Jimenez, priority projects and ODA; BCDA chairman Florencio Padernal; Presidential Assistant Rene Diaz and PCSO Chairman Honeygirl de Leon. Participants of this Congress, guests, ladies and gentlemen, movers of the advertising industry, good morning.

I know that this morning I am speaking before some of the most creative minds in our country. I'm speaking before a gathering of some of the country's most eloquent people, the professionals with the big ideas, the professionals whose messages shape the mind and change the behavior of our people.

Gabby Lopez is happy with this SRO crowd, and so am I, and so are we all. He is happy that this congress is the most attended in your history, congratulations!

I asked gabby, why is this Congress your most attended? He thinks this turnout is a sign that first, Baguio is very popular -- congratulations mayor Vergara and Congressman Domogan! -- but second, that Philippine business is getting more brisk.

Indeed, while historically our economic development has been slow compared to our neighbors, this year -- in fact, the last two and a half years -- this once basket case of Asia is posting a growth rate that is number six overall among the 21 economies of the Asia-pacific region. and this year in particular is our highest growth since the Asian crunch of 1997. That performance owed much to two leading sectors -- the increased marketing activity in telecommunications and the obviously positive consumer confidence shown by the growth of retail -- witness SM's opening tomorrow. And these two activities, these two leading sectors in our growth are both intimately intertwined with the advertising industry.

Thus, I am here with you to celebrate and to thank you for your big contribution to our economic development. You have always known that you influence the minds of our people. But this time, by increasing marketing activity, by helping consumer confidence, by stimulating commerce, you have influenced the growth of our economy itself. You are so powerful, not only do you influence confidence, you can influence the pace of the economy. You are more powerful than we have imagined, and in a way you are powerful than any presidency.

In fact, it has been said that presidents are only elected by men but creative people like you are the truly anointed. You use the media as the main outlet of your trade. The media is our town plaza of the 21st century. The test of social acceptance used to be can we defend it in Plaza Miranda today, you are our Plaza Miranda.

And I come here today with full recognition of that strength of yours as a major economic force of our country whose primary concern is economic development and the elimination of poverty.

You are here to celebrate the great idea.

And Cerge said, Remonde, that you can contribute your great idea to our economic development by helping create brand Philippines. but for you to create the brand, I must give you the material without the pizzazz, because pizzazz is not my job, that's yours.

And so let me spend a few moments to speak to you about the material that I hope your great idea can contribute to, so that we can indeed have a brand Philippines.

Our historical problems cannot be blamed on any single president because the problems are fundamental. They're caused by the economic and political systems.

To be a stronger republic, we must change the system, reform the system. Usher in deep and far-reaching reforms that will lead to political and social stability and sustained economic development. And we must also unify as a people.

My learning curve of the last two and a half years in the presidency has taught me that we need five fundamental reforms: reforming the market, reforming agriculture, reforming our social assets, reforming the bureaucracy and reforming our protective institutions.

Yes, we must reform the market. The market that you know so well, by making it a market that creates jobs and opportunities. I'm proud of our market successes on the macroeconomic front: our growth rate is steady; our inflation rate has been kept under control; the budget deficit has been kept within manageable levels; fiscal performance has improved; bandwidth became cheaper and more accessible in my administration.

But we must build the long-term underpinnings of infrastructure, telecommunications, electric power, expanded credit.

We must also broaden education to sharpen that great idea, the intellectual competitiveness of our country. I believe in investing in education because I believe that the Philippines greatest resource is indeed the great idea -- the Filipino skill and the Filipino mind.

And I congratulate you for coming up with the congress theme that indeed proclaims the power of the Filipino mind through the great idea.

Anywhere in the world, there will be Filipino country business managers, marketing directors, top advertising personnel. It is a not strange to us that the founding chairman of the Asian Federation of Advertising Agencies was Antonio de Joya, a Filipino. In all fields, in fact, intellectual and physical, from Antonio de Joya to Manny Pacquiao, we are world class.

But to do justice to that world class Filipino, we need structural reforms for the government to broaden its fiscal controls and capabilities, provide the infrastructure needed to leverage the nation's competitive advantages, and promote a business-friendly environment based on good governance and a strong deep financial and banking system.

We must also liberate the country with reforms in agriculture. It is where the keenest struggle for survival takes place. And it is where we must pursue that great idea pagkain sa bawat mesa. no Filipino who works hard for family and country must be deprived of a decent meal.

For agricultural modernization, we spend at least -- in my administration -- at least 20 billion pesos a year. Gabby talked about the miracle rice. I hope he's talking about our hybrid rice in my administration. Rice productivity has reached a new bounty with the propagation of hybrid rice doubling the yield of the farmers who use it and also with the biggest irrigation program in history.

We have found new markets -- and markets are very important for you to help us find -- new markets for tuna, carrageenan, tropical fruits. As a boost to agriculture, we have the roll-on/roll-off ferry highway system now reducing the cost of food transport from Mindanao to Luzon.

Pagkain sa bawat mesa. a duty to every Filipino. A commitment that cannot be compromised no matter what. And to do this, we must put real wealth in the hands of our farmers by legislating the acceptability of farmland as collateral.

And now reforming our social assets. Land credit minimum basic needs, these are social assets where we have given an unprecedented number of people including people in Baguio the right to buy the land they occupy. We must apply deeper reforms, and I have the model developed by Hernando de Soto to follow.

We are providing micro credit, another asset, to one million assetless rural women. And we're being praised by no less than the author of the Grameen Bank model himself, Dr. Yunos. But beyond that, if we can have fiscal and banking reforms, we will be able to have a one-time seed fund of one million pesos in microfinance per barangay as proven successful by the one million baht, one village project in Thailand.

Stable prices for the food of the poor, like ordinary rice and fish, which we have achieved. And stable prices for medicines, which we must achieve by cutting the price of medicines for the poor in half, are asset reforms as well. All these programs can graduate into fundamental reforms if we work hard enough on governance reform.

Through my two and a half years of the learning curve, I've learned the complexities of the bureaucracy.

The World Bank has praised our vigilant advances in fighting corruption, acknowledging that we have been effective in our lifestyle checks and procurement reforms.

The people's dissatisfaction about government services are being addressed too. There have been dramatic changes in the land transportation office. And I also make surprise visits to police stations.

But once and for all, we must end graft with a mighty hand of political will and a change of values among our citizenry. And you, the movers of advertising, can help us change values and change behavior. At the same time, we must use our fiscal reforms to have a better compensated civil service.

It is also important to reform our system through constitutional change. A stronger republic must be a more secure republic.

I would like to announce that the kidnappers of the coca-cola executive have been caught, some of them. The others have been killed in an encounter including their leader the notorious number one kidnapper in the order of battle, Roberto yap. He was killed in Bataan in an earlier encounter.

The quick solution of the coca-cola executive slay is a combination of strong barangay vigilance and swift police and inter-agency response. And I commend all those involved in the operation under the leadership of Secretary Angelo Reyes.

Let us show these criminals that the law never sleeps and they cannot escape it. But the fact that the quick solution had to be done by an AD HOC task force shows that we need institutional reforms. We need to reform our protective institutions because of the imperatives of peace and order, the war against terrorism, and the vision of a drug-free Philippines by 2005.

We increased the salaries of policemen and military personnel during my administration to the same level as that of teachers. But we need a deeper reform of the military and the police towards graft-free and dedicated organizations with the tools to enforce peace and order throughout the land and to be true protectors of our people.

Our major non-NATO ally status with the United States will be used, will enable us to have a modern armed forces with less pain to the economy. Indeed, these are the ideas that I had been able to fashion over the last two and a half years of my learning curve.

And just like you, in dealing with the bureaucracy, in dealing with the people, I recognize that this is a country of intelligent people, but why are we miserable? It's because we delight in the things that divide us more than the things that unite us.

There is too much negativism and conflict in our society, and I attribute much of these to the social and political divisions that exist in our nation today. We need to heal those deep divisions. While we must have justice, we must also have reconciliation. We must put a closure to our past national divisions. We must have permanent peace in Mindanao. We must end the communist insurgency. And the recovery of the Marcos wealth, with a final decision of the Supreme Court, should now put martial law behind us. And most of all, the most difficult, we must find a closure to the divisions between Edsa Dos and Edsa Tres.

If we must survive national unity and reconciliation, it's the resolution that is non-negotiable. We must be relentless in the pursuit of reconciliation no matter how impossible it looks. Like Jesus Christ would not have changed his gospel no matter how many times he would have been crucified and ridiculed. No fear, no resistance should distract us from our vision. Our nightmares should not distract us from our dreams.

And you, movers of the advertising industry, creators of great ideas, with your overwhelming influence on the Filipino mind, with your ability to move people into thinking, to action and even to battle if need be, you can make every Filipino believe in his heart that our history far from ending is giving itself a fresh start.

Work with me on this fresh start. Tulungan ninyo ako sa pagbabago at pagkakaisa ng ating bansa. And to me, a fresh start, deep reform, unity and reconciliation, that is the greatest idea of all. But you are the ones who can move people to make that great idea come true.

Congratulations! And thank you.

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