Ferdinand Marcos

“ We have lived through a period of crisis and renewal in our land, the likes of which we have not known or attempted before, which we hope we will never see again. Just as it is fact that we have brought to life a new system of government in our country, so it is also fact that the people and the nation which will raise it to maturity are now liberated, as many of us are wont to say, from the shackles of the past and the fetters and struc­tures and trends in our national history. ”

“ The economic ideology is private enterprise with an egalitarian base that encourages the private sector to assume the initiative of development with the government setting up the inducements, the rewards, and the general atmosphere of encouragement. But at the same time, while we encourage private investment, it must now be agreed that we should regulate wealth so that it is not utilized to brutalize or degrade our people. This is a principle of faith with the New Republic. ”

“ The Kilusang Kabuhayan probably should be not just an umbrella program for the livelihood projects but should be a national movement to spearhead the spiritual awakening of the country­side for self-reliance, self-help, and self-determination, as well as the increase in the production of goods and services. ”

“ When we say therefore that economic devel­opment has resulted in the improvement of incomes and living conditions for our people, we do not merely cite statistical averages of benefits and in­comes. We mean that development has touched and even reshaped the lives of the great masses of our people.
We have already remarked upon the rise in incomes of the lower 50 percent of our population. We shall merely add here the revealing trend that income growth is seeping into all classes in so­ciety, raising the number and percentage of those earning ₱30,000 and more significantly. ”

“ That agenda requires us to address the challenges of reducing further our population growth, of eliminating unemployment and underemployment, of raising productivity both in agriculture and in industry, of rectifying imbalance in regional development, of relieving our high dependence on imported oil, of raising deficient domestic resource allocations, and of resolving problems both in the public and private sectors of our national life. ”

“ We have today the rare opportunity, consequent to the establishment of our New Republic, to conduct a thorough reorganization of the govern­ment in order to enable it to serve the people more efficiently, more effectively and more economically. ”

“ In our family planning program, we shall con­tinue to pursue the choice of conscience method, which grants each individual the choice between artificial birth control and the natural rhythm meth­od of family planning. So far, this has been accepted by our people as successful in bringing our population growth rate down from 3.01 percent to 2.4 percent, but we now aim to bring this further down to 2 percent. ”

“ At the same time, we have been supporting the efforts of the private sector in obtaining contracts in infra­structure and services in those countries.
While we venture into the accelerated develop­ment of industry, agriculture, trade and the other sectors of the economy, we shall continue to gear a major part of our programs to more equitable access by our people to social opportunities and to fuller development and utilization of our human resources. ”

“ The growing participation of labor in the profits of development should be maintained.
The agrarian reform program must now proceed towards its logical next step, which involves, as I said, establishment of production and mar­keting cooperatives as well as the pooling of re­sources and facilities in the consolidation program of small farm units.
The New Republic draws its vitality from its roots in the villages. Barangay participatory de­mocracy must continue. ”

“ Jesus Tanchanco, has been elevated to Cabinet rank.
The public market construction program should make available ₱70 million per year to construct 200 markets over a seven-year period in standard prototypes costing between ₱400,000 and ₱10 million.
A program therefore of public market and stor­age construction and upgrading services becomes critical as a major component of the Kilusang Kabuhayan program.
Since the Kilusang Kabuhayan is to be deve­loped as a national movement, the element of train­ing, not only for human resource mobilization but for social reorganization, becomes critical. ”

“ The social gains and the overall growth of the sense of human dignity among Filipino citizens through health, education, housing, livelihood and social security measures have been reported time and again, and may be reiterated here briefly.
Statistics, however, wm never tell the full story of how our nation and our society have changed. The final measure is how our people perceive the change in their status and well-being ”

“ The realignment of educational output with the demands of the labor market is now a major focus of our concern. We have stressed the training of middle and high level technical manpower. I have ordered the conversion of public high schools into technical, vocational, and technological or agricul­tural high schools. The development of scientific courses is being encouraged to serve our technology requirements. ”

“ It is proposed that a training network be established at the University of Life to cover local government officials and Kilusang Kabuhayan leaders.
While we are in the process of saving large distressed industries, it should be the policy of govern­ment to continue to extend total support to the small entrepreneurs. ”

“ In instituting reforms for the benefit of the greater masses of our people, our main concerns have been the visible disparities in our society and the lack of equal opportunities for the dispossessed, the deprived, and the disadvantaged, to rise above their marginal existence. ”

“ We look around us and we see that our insti­tutions have grown in capabilities and resources, just as families and individuals have experienced new fulfillment in their quest for identity, dignity and advancement. ”

“ Stronger cooperation and coordination be­tween the government and private sector in the planning and implementation of industrial policies and programs.
In the encouragement of the countryside in­dustries, I will have more to say about the Kilusang Kabuhayan.
Measures have also been undertaken to improve the efficiency of manufacturing industries to accelerate employment generation and to further stimulate the growth of industry outside Metropolitan Manila.
Highlighting the long-term industrialization program is the accelerated implementation of the eleven major industrial projects. ”

“ Despite our best efforts in the past, energy continues to be one of the most vulnerable sectors of our economy, vulnerable because it is subject to external forces over which we have no control.
It will take much political will and resolution to attain our goals on energy. As of 1980 our dependence on foreign oil was reduced from 97 percent to 83 percent. ”

“ Despite the adversities of the time, we sus­tained our drive toward economic development at rates and levels even more impressive than those of the decade preceding it, when there was no crisis. Behind this impressive performance was the application of vigorous and responsive inter­nal policies and enlightened economic management, which embraced the full range of economic con­cerns and endeavors. ”

“ Why do I speak of public markets? Because if we are to increase the production of sterile and stagnant villages at present, we will discover that 108 of our municipalities have no public markets. And it will be necessary to develop not only public markets but also warehouses and depositories for our products. ”

“ We shall encourage low ­cost housing designs and the more effective utiliza­tion of local materials for housing construction to reach as many beneficiaries as possible-a project that has been started by the Ministry of Human Settlements. ”

“ The basic reforms and programs affecting in­dustry exports, financial system, and energy are expected to have positive effects on the payment imbalance in the next few years. Our credit lines to the international financial markets remain open and favorable. Just recently we reviewed with the International Monetary Fund the status of our financial program on which we have made some adjustments to accommodate additional credit needs, and they committed more than $1 billion in support of our projects. ”

“ As the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan is the political party for the New Republic, the Kilusang Kabuhayan shall be its fundamental concept and platform of national development.
Economic production is the core of this community enterprise. It is therefore logical to direct and contain the initial implementation of the move­ment in key program or project prototypes. These prototypes should be in strategic sectors and should be replicable across municipalities and provinces to establish a mass move for development. These prototypes are as follows:
1. ”

“ And talking about this ministry, the policy thrust is the total development of communi­ties, and such development must move along the central core of livelihood, self-reliance, income generation, or in general, production by every per son within the village.
The orientation of the New Society made it pos­sible for us to evolve wise and appropriate labor and social policies which sought development based on social justice. The New Republic can do no less. ”

“ We begin this task with the nation never more closely united under one faith, with our people never more prepared for the tasks of reconstruction and development, and with the government never more stable and strong for the prosecution of the policies and programs that must be pursued.
Three years ago, when the Batasang Pambansa was first convened on June 12, 1978, if you will remember, I said before this august Body:
“We must attend to the continuing normalization of our political life, and the methodical construction of a truly demo­cratic political order ”

“ The emphasis of the infrastructure program will continue to be power and electrification of course, but we must also take into account irriga­tion, transport, and all social infrastructure projects, specially the farm-to-market roads. ”

“ We are strengthening the growth prospects of our exports through the establishment of more Export Processing Zones throughout the country. I will have more to say on the matter of the creation of teams that will be sent to other countries to negotiate trade arrangements. ”

“ The goal for 1985 is to reduce this to 50 percent. This does not take into account any possible sudden breakthroughs in non­-conventional sources of energy, like direct conversion of sunlight into electric energy through a cheaper method than now exists, or discovery of large deposits of oil in our country.
The Batasang Pambansa and the Cabinet must now attend to the nonconventional means of pro­ducing energy, like dendrothermal, hydroelectric (including mini-hydro) , geothermal, coal, biogas, and so many others. ”

“ Waste Utilization - This prototype involves the utilization of bio-waste derived from the agro-forestry, agro-livestock and agro-marine projects as organic fertilizers or as raw materials for bri­quetting, cubing and pelletizing. 5. Cottage and Light Industries - The prototypes cover garments (50 machine levels at a project cost of ₱250,000 for an income per beneficiary of ₱6,000, for 60 beneficiaries) ; bakery and food proc­essing (project cost of ₱5,000 for an income per beneficiary of ₱4,500 for 3 beneficiaries) ”

“ Agro-Livestock - The prototypes take off from the crop and livestock programs of the Minis­try of Agriculture. On the backward linkages, integrated livestock feed mills shall be established in strategic areas utilizing not only Ipil-Ipil but root crops and other farm products. ”

“ These projects are expected to intensify the technological com­ponent of the industrial structure and the develop­ment of an efficient domestic intermediate goods industry.
The success of industrialization, however, will rely a great deal on our capacity to export our products. ”