PGMA's Speech during the 3rd University of the Philippines Public Lecture Series on the Presidency and Administration "A Choice Between Two Futures"

Heroes Hall, Malacaņang (18 March 2004)

Historically, our economic development has been slow compared to our neighbors especially starting in the 1970s. Our historic problem has been the need for economic development to fight poverty.

As I move about among the people and converse with them, I can see that the change that we all want is in terms of a better life, particularly in economic terms such as jobs, prices, livelihood, and so on. In fact, as I often summarize it -- pagkain sa bawat mesa.

I have been fighting for change for the average Filipino.

In a short time, I have made a strong start. This is not a report for the end of a term because I have not served a full term. This is a report on a strong start I have made in a short period of time. In this short period of time of my presidency, I have turned the economy around and stabilized the mess we inherited.

My fight for change has revolved around four components: the first, an economic philosophy of free enterprise appropriate to the 21st century. The second, a modernized agricultural sector founded on social equity. The third, a social bias toward the disadvantaged to balance our economic development plan. And the fourth, to raise the moral standards of government and society and enhance the rule of law.

On the first, which is to promote free enterprise to create jobs, I've been using my clout and experience to turn the economy around and create jobs with better wages. I've made a strong start in reforming the power sector, cutting red tape, modernizing agriculture, creating jobs, promoting information and communication technology. The bottomline is job creation.

President Estrada created half a million jobs, I created more than three million jobs. The strength of my foreign policy has given confidence to nations to invest in our nation. I am attracting huge investments needed to modernize our nation.

Last year foreign investments increased by 26 percent, including Intel's expansion to one billion dollars, Matsushita's 230 million-dollar air-condition factory, Texas instruments' 100 million-dollar expansion, ford's 50 million-dollar car assembly, early this year, national steel's reopening which will eventually cost it one billion dollars for the investor, and the call centers and business processing outsources centers which have increased their number of seats from 2,000 before I became president to 60,000 this year.

To prepare our youth to be the next generation of knowledge workers and workers in high tech industries and services, we are upgrading math and science teaching in basic education, engaging in a massive schoolbuilding program, and bringing distance learning to the hardship barangays where many teachers don't dare to tread.

This afternoon I will inaugurate a 330 million-dollar Sunpower Solar panel investment, one of the fruits of my state visit to the United States. Last February, the economic zones registered a more than 300 percent increase in investments over last year.

To grow exports we have found new markets for tuna, carrageenan, tropical fruits, software and I.T. Services, and vehicles like ford and even our jeepneys.

But aside from huge investments, more than at any time in our economic history, we have made billions available for small and medium enterprises that employ millions of people. In the last ten months alone, 20 billion pesos have been made available for small and medium enterprises.

We are closing the infrastructure gap to bring in these investments. Our power grids are being modernized to prevent massive and prolonged brownouts. New power generation capacity is being built to meet rising demand. Malampaya went into operation, making the Philippines more than 50 percent self-sufficient in energy.

The road users tax is giving us now a first-class national road system. And to bring our people closer and move them faster, we are upgrading our rail system, expanding mass transport in metro manila, and we have completed in record time a nautical highway system that now links our farthest islands. Within metro manila, we have increased travel speed from 14 kilometers per hour to 22 on the railroad -- no, not on the railroad first -- on the roads.

We have expanded the north expressway and started a south expressway expansion after a long, long wait. The new Davao international airport has been opened, the Iloilo international airport contract has been signed, the NAIA 3 airport case has been won in the Supreme Court. The Batangas international port is now operating as an alternative for the CALABARZON factories who don't want to wade through the traffic to manila. China will finance our north railroad, Korea will finance our south railroad, and the first of the Mindanao railroad agreements will be signed hopefully next month.

The cost of internet connections is one third of what it used to be, spurring I.T. Industry development.

On agricultural modernization, thanks to investments in irrigation, hybrid crops and improved transport systems, our agriculture has begun to modernize by spending an unprecedented 20 billion pesos a year on agricultural modernization, we've been able to irrigate an unprecedented 600,000 hectares of land through the new and rehabilitated systems.

Thus, in my administration, we've been able to maintain stable supply -- no, not stable -- increasing supply and stable prices for regular milled rice for the poor. In fact, I think, I'm the only president in history that has not been attacked for an acute rice shortage.

Because of rice productivity, we have cut down our rice importation from one million metric tons as I inherited it, to only half a million now. And we will be self-sufficient within two years if current policies are maintained.

Because of the stable price of regular milled rice, we had been able to achieve last year a 3.1 percent inflation rate, the lowest in 16 years. Throughout my term in fact, prices have stayed around 17 pesos for regular milled rice, around 27 for sugar, around 8 for sardines, around 9 for toyo, around 9 for patis, around 5 for iodized salt. Even as farmgate prices for corn and coconut have now increased to the betterment of our farmers. We have propagated tilapia as the more nutritious and more reliably available and therefore, more stable priced common man's fish than galunggong which either comes from our overfished waters or needs to be imported.

On the social bias, I have made unprecedented gains in housing and healthcare. A housing program unprecedented in its scale is underway and has provided so far 300,000 houses for the working class and a 100,000 for the poorest of the poor compared with the time that I inherited, a time when nobody was building houses among the developers. We have distributed over one million hectares of agricultural, urban, and ancestral domain land more than at any other time.

Health insurance for the first time has reached the majority of the families, our next goal is for us to let it reach all the families. Half-priced medicines bought by the poor are now available in national and regional hospitals, and because we started this through a 100 million-peso fund for importing from India where medicines are cheaper, now the private sector is beginning to build their facilities and producing this low-priced medicine such as Unilab and Glaxo.

For the first time, majority of the poor families had electricity because of unprecedented barangay electrification at 2,000 per year -- per year? No, more than that.

We have protected our overseas Filipinos as well. The anti-money laundering law not just improves the business climate by increasing confidence in our banking system, it has also protected workers' remittances. We've obtained also the commitment of the u.s., Korea, Israel, Malaysia and Italy on the legalization of undocumented Filipinos.

On improving moral standards and upholding the rule of law, we are cracking down hard on corruption through more efficient procurement procedures because at last we've been able to get the administration measure on e-procurement pass into law and also on strict lifestyle checks on high government officials. Through these lifestyle checks and other means, we've fired big fish and filed cases at the levels of Undersecretary, Deputy customs commissioner, Customs collector, Assistant BIR commissioner, Regional director, BIR collection agents, BIR supervising examiner, Judge, Prosecutor. Because we were able to do the competent investigation that found, for instance, assets worth 92 million pesos belonging to an official with a 25,000 pesos salary.

We have strengthened the arm of the law. We've decimated and neutralized our most pernicious enemies on the terrorism front. Major terrorists like Robot, Abu Sabaya, Al-Ghozi, global have been killed or arrested.

In my short time as president, we've confiscated and destroyed billions of pesos of illegal drugs, and smashed international drug syndicates, not to mention the big kidnapping syndicates. Thirteen of the 21 most wanted have already been brought into behind bars or even neutralized and killed in an encounter. Back to drugs, we've arrested more than 20,000 drug pushers including the no. 1 drug lord William Gan, who many times was able to avoid the force of the law.

We are continuing to reform and professionalize our police organization so that it can better protect our citizens against both organized and petty crime. That is one hand the enforcement of the law. But on the other hand, peace looms closer.

Earnest negotiations have brought us to the brink of a historic political settlement with the Moro Islamic liberation front. I'm happy to see our friends here from Malaysia, from Libya, from Brunei, from Indonesia, from Bangladesh, from the OIC -- friends who have helped us to move the peace process to a point where it is actually working. We are keeping the door open to a negotiated settlement with the communist left.

All this -- and I should say more but it took what, 30 lectures to be able to say more. So I have just picked on some of these just to highlight the things that we have done in a short period of time. All this and what my colleagues have explained to you are but a down payment and certainly, I agree that it's not good enough. A next installment must be done. 

It will take resolve and leadership to overcome the forces trying to divide us. For I did a strong start in the midst of coming into power on the crest of great division in our society. A division that still continues today, even us we reach out our hand in reconciliation to every one who is willing to accept a principled reconciliation.

We have begun to recover strongly from the devastation brought about by the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Despite the odds, we managed to maintain impressive economic growth and began to recover strongly from the devastation brought about indeed by that crisis of 1997. But while during my short presidency we did better than many of our neighbors in terms of growth rates, with the region now starting to recover, our neighbors are starting to accelerate their growth again. This time we cannot afford to be left behind.

I will fight for unprecedented change that makes us more secure, strengthens our families, and stamps out corruption. We've made progress, but I need a mandate from the people for fundamental change in our political system. I will fight to change the culture of corruption through a reform of the institutions and also through the educational system. I will stop the scourge of drugs and wipe out terrorism. I will expand health coverage to all, bring more housing, expand property rights and create more jobs and better wages. We will have clean water and clean government.

I want to create 6 million jobs in six years. I want to expand health care to all families. I want to expand property rights to 12 million Filipinos. I want to build 3 million new housing units. I want to enhance the protection of our OFWs. I want to stamp out corruption. I want to ensure clean water in every barangay in the country.

To achieve these changes which are end results, we need a reform agenda for the next installment. Our reform agenda for the next installment covers five major areas of concern:

First, government reform. We have to turn the behemoth of the bureaucracy into a modern, streamlined, and efficient organization. We have to review our constitution -- and I hope Dr. Abueva will help me there -- to review our constitution in order to make the correct transition of our country towards a parliamentary and federal form of government.

Second, market reform. By 2010, we should use market reform to see the poverty rate cut in half. We can only achieve this halving of our poverty rate by maintaining a high rate of economic growth. And this can only be made possible by opening opportunities for our small and medium enterprises through low interest rates and an even lower inflation rate, through fiscal policies that ensure the stability of our currency and by encouraging more intensive trade with the rest of the world.

We will continue to support private enterprise and free them from bureaucratic red tape and bureaucratic corruption to unleash the creativity of our people and our nation.

Third, asset reform. You know, even the most sophisticated businessmen tell me when i say asset for... What, what's that? And they say please speak in plain English. Anyway, asset reform... What are assets -- land, capital, those are assets. Therefore, agrarian reform is one such asset reform, together with urban land reform and ancestral domain reform, and this must be completed within this decade.

The supreme court's final ruling on the Marcos swiss accounts will provide us with the finances to accelerate agrarian reform. Also, I launched a massive program to provide small entrepreneurs with capital. And aside from what I mentioned earlier about small enterprise with the micro-enterprise where a million women have availed of micro-enterprise loans today, but we want that micro-enterprise system to reach every barangay in our country.

Fourth, agricultural reform. In my short term as president, I focused on raising the funds so as to have been able to make a strong start for agricultural modernization. But we need to do more than pump more capital into agriculture. We need to raise productivity, as we have done in about a hundred hectares of riceland. But we have to do that in 500 hectares of riceland more with hybrid rice and 2 million hectares of irrigable and irrigated land where we had irrigated half a million in addition to the one million I inherited, only half a million more of irrigation to go -- half a million hectares. We will encourage our farmers to shift to more productive varieties of rice like this hybrid rice and more high value added crops.

And fifth, we will talk also in our agenda and work on it criminal justice reform. We must continue to reform and to transform the AFP and the PNP as well into loyal, dedicated, and efficient organizations with the modern means to enforce the law, and to be true protectors of our people, especially the weakest against crime, against terrorism, against all forms of political and criminal violence.

We also support judicial reform. That's why in my administration, we've been able to pass three important measures on judicial reform -- the judges, the prosecutors, and soon I will sign the mechanism for mediation. These will help us strengthen the pillars of justice in our society.

Yes, we have had our strong start based on the four components: creating jobs through free enterprise, modernizing agriculture, having a bias for the poor, and improving moral standard and the rule of law. And over the next years we have these five basic areas of reform.

In the next few years, we can take bolder steps forward, given the time, a full term, and the opportunity to complete the strong start we have begun.

That opportunity is what I seek in the presidency of this republic.

Today, as we stand on the threshold of our first presidential election in this new century, many seem to be distracted by the siren song of the same politics and the same politicians we'd resolutely rejected in 1986 and again in 2001.

These coming elections will be a test of our political maturity, of our resolve to stay the course of stability and growth against the seduction of populist demagoguery, and against the fleeting thrill of flirting with the untested and the unknown.

The may election will be much more than a battle of personalities. It is rather a contest between competing ideologies, between the old politics and the new, between inspiration and desperation, between experience and amateurism serving as the mask of those who want us to go back to the dark ages that we threw away in the EDSAs.

The presidency is no easy job. It requires great vision, yes. But many can talk about a vision but it also requires the willingness to work hard, it requires the experience to mind the thousand details of national housekeeping.

It requires managing a large, diverse and complex bureaucracy of 1.2 million civil servants. It requires representing the nation in international dialogues and explaining our national interest in the emerging global issues of the day.

So they will have the confidence of their businessmen to invest with us and their officials to do their best in assisting us in our own development. It requires the highest quality of judgment on a universe of issues that need executive attention every single day.

If my immediate predecessor failed in some of these respects to the extent that Edsa 2 happened, it can only serve as a lesson for those of us after him. We cannot and must not repeat those mistakes.

As a person, I feel it only fair to treat former president Estrada with respect and dignity. But treating them on the one hand with respect and dignity, on the other hand I have to be clear that on issues of governance and in the best interest of the nation, we must do differently and do better than the previous dispensation. And reject those who would simply return us to the same old politics, in fact, the same old politicians of cronyism and corruption.

Indeed, our people's primary concern is food on the table. I have said as much myself many, many times, but it takes much more than talk, much more than a beautiful slogan, much more than a simple recipe to get things done. To go by this analogy of food on every table, we need a cook, who's cooked before, who knows his job or her job, who can offer more than leftovers or scraps of ideas from discredited politicians.

During the short period of my presidency, I've tried my best to lead by example: through hard work, personal integrity, dedication to the task of lifting our people from poverty, and a commitment to improving governance.

I have learned much on the job. Added to what I have learned in my U.P. Education as Doctor of Economics, to what I have learned in my stint as undersecretary of Trade and Industry, to what I have learned as a senator doing all the legislation in the early... From 1992 to 1998 that have brought about the beginning of our economic reform, to that I have learned my execution as president.

I offer to our people a road map to prosperity, these five areas of government reforms based on a government that performs.

What they can only promise, we have made a strong start on.

And once more, together, we who have survived the worst of the past can make the best of the future through our program of fundamental reform to build on the strong start we have made.

Our nation has a clear choice: between tested and experienced leadership on the one hand, and gambling on inexperience and uncertainty on the other. We can move forward and realize our destiny as a modern nation or make a u-turn back to the midnight kitchenomics of the past.

It is a choice not just between politicians and personalities. It is a choice between two futures.

Thank you.

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