Ferdinand Marcos

“ Behind the sudden coalition of anti-government forces was the loss of will and paralysis on the part of government and government officers, which served to encourage the ambitions of many who coveted power no matter by what means. And beyond the barricades, an entire society asked for not just surcease to the chaos on our streets but earnest effort to rally its flagging energies to the tasks of national transformation and change.
The cause of national survival itself demanded sweeping social change and reform. ”

“ Thus, if in the past we have had legislatures that tended to conserve rather than reform, legislatures that preached caution in response to crisis and urgency as well as challenge, legislatures that nursed dependence on others rather than encouraged national self-reliance, and legislatures that competed with the executive branch instead of working as its unfailing partner and ally—and this to the prejudice of the national welfare—this assembly must see itself as a reformist committed to change and the transformation of our society. ”

“ The survival of the public order and of the individual rights it secures rests on the ability of the government to maintain its independence from those who would seek to manipulate it, fragment it, or subvert it. Our recent experience has taught us that only when the government was able to liberate itself from the entrenched influence of the oligarchy, the political warlords and the criminal syndicates, could it cope effectively with the open challenge of rebellion and anarchy. A weak government is a menace to public order, to national security and to individual rights. ”

“ And let it never be forgotten that this is a burden and a challenge that are ours alone to bear. The time when we could look to others for the fulfillment of hopes and aspirations is long past. Only in self-reliance, in the confidence that we are equal to our tasks, shall we reap.
For this challenge of national self-strengthening, we shall have great need of unity of purpose and effort within this government and this assembly. We shall have great need of unswerving faith in the new institution we are summoned to erect. ”

“ So it is this coherent, rational program of government that offers the basis for continuity in the process of reform and development during this period of transition towards a mixed presidential-parliamentary form of government.
We have often wondered how we moved from crisis and adversity to stability and dynamism over the short period of five-and-a-half years, how we met targets well beyond anything we had known in the past. So much so that in the year 1974, at the height of the economic crisis, the rate of growth of our economy reached the unprecedented level of almost 10 percent. ”

“ With the oath I have just taken as Prime Minister, and the oath taken by the members of the Cabinet, a new Government enters into the service of our Republic.
It adds to the awesome charge of this assembly that it should open its first session on this 80th year of our Independence.
None of us can fail to appreciate the real significance of this moment.
None cannot but glory at the significance, political and otherwise, of the events not only today but in the last five and a half years. For the first time the Filipino people are truly sovereign over their land. ”

“ Our foreign relations today are governed by an outlook that looks upon foreign policy as a tool for national development, that looks upon every nation as a friend and ally, and that regards our place in the family of nations as one deserving of respect. ”

“ It remains our fundamental policy that private enterprise must serve as our primary agent in the realization of economic achievement, and government must enter only those areas of economic endeavor in which private enterprise is not prepared or able to service needs and meet desired targets.
But let me remind everyone that while we encourage private enterprise and initiative and recognize it and oppose the abolition of private property, the Constitution requires that the government regulate wealth in the interest of the general welfare. ”

“ Political will is as necessary today as it was during the last five years to mobilize the energies of our people for development and change.
The establishment of the interim Batasang Pambansa extends public authority from the solitary seat of the Presidency to a broader spectrum of the national leadership; but it is hardly the intent of our people that the sharing of power should diffuse the national political will to develop and modernize. Neither is it our desire that the political order toward which we are moving should produce a bifurcated vision of the national future. ”

“ These principles of government that I have referred to are not unrelated measures designed to merely conciliate specific grievances in our national life or to serve narrow interests of specific sectors. They form one united whole, a seamless whole, and their application which has permeated the whole of our country and touched every sector of society shall be the role of this assembly—to see to it that all these reforms shall touch the life of every Filipino in our country. ”

“ In the wake of this eventful period in our national life, we can and we must chart the course that will fully attain for us our greatest hopes for freedom, for progress, for equality and for true democracy. ”

“ It has been our experience that political power resides as it did in the political broker of old and not in the people when the farmer is not organized, or the worker is not organized or the barangay is not organized, or major sectors of our society to organize the masses in their communities and in their sectors, we cannot achieve complete participatory democracy. Third: The struggle for national development, for true and complete freedom and human rights, must be waged and won in the rural areas more than anywhere else. ”

“ All too often, some of us mistake political normalization for the mere relaxation of those controls exercised by our crisis government. All too often, some of us imagine that a simple return to the free-wheeling tendencies of our past political order will suffice to install political change. ”

“ Under our Five-Year Development Plan, programs for social services such as health, nutrition, and welfare will be expanded on a nationwide scale, with special stress on the provision of relief and assistance to the very poor among our people.
The expansion of social opportunities in the form of employment and edu­cation, already a major focus of effort during the last five years, will be the principal vehicle for the promotion of social welfare. And when we speak of social welfare, we speak not only of a few areas in the country but of the entire country. ”

“ The enervation of the political system was due to a bureaucracy that could not effectively discharge the tasks of government.
The principle implied by this sad experience is a very simple but often neglected one; it is a fact that effective government is the single, most important input into the kind of political change and development we covet. Government performance needs what is encouraging and promising in our political life. On the other hand, no amount of elections can install a strong political order where the task of government is poorly administered. ”

“ We knew the crisis to be rooted in social inequities, in conditions of oppression and want, which our democratic processes could only palliate. Behind the arms borne against the state were grievances so deep and glaring that many found common cause with the insurgents and the rebels without under­standing why. ”

“ My greatest accomplishment as a leader will lie not in having been able to save the nation from the incapacity of an inept legislature, but in being able to say at the end of the day that because of an alert and competent legislature I did not have to use any of my standby powers to effect necessary and urgent legislation. ”

“ It is in the rural areas where the great majority of our people live and where poverty and under development are most deeply rooted. It is the geography of our central concern and the great redirection of public resources from the urban to the rural area initiated by the crisis government which must be maintained. Unless we do so, the entire nation, including its urban areas, will ultimately be overwhelmed by deprivation. ”

“ Investments in education are after all the real fuel for the engine of development.
As an added new concern in the social sector, which again comes directly under the Department of Human Settlements, we should now attend to the housing needs of the population, to urban reforms, and to the quality of our human settlements in general. Our new housing program will involve not only the provision of shelter but also the improvement of the entire environment especially in marginal areas. ”

“ The momentum of national recovery and transformation now requires the growing permanency of democratic processes—processes that should fully institutionalize reforms and install them as the governing vision of our society. ”

“ In the readjustment, diversification and expansion of our foreign relation, in the search for new friends on the basis of new relations and the establishment of new relations with old friends, we shall find a new source of national security and an added resource for national development. Finally, as important as the form of government is the degree of government which can effectively be exercised in aid of national development and in aid of the individual Filipino. ”

“ As always, development diplomacy shall continue to serve particularly our actions in the negotiation of treaties and agreements with other nations. It shall guide us in resolving those irritants that remain of a passing era that made us the charge of another country. It shall define our place among the nations of the Third World. ”

“ We initiated programs for the redistribution and democratization of wealth, beginning with policies designed to extend a new deal to labor and the peasantry and culminating in the passing of a new Labor Code and the implementation of a massive rural development program.
In the belief that social development and individual welfare cannot be postponed until the lime when full economic modernization is attained, we sought the expansion of job opportunities, social amenities, and social services, particularly those covering the basic necessities of food and health. ”

“ In the matter of trade, we are anxious to find out how well disposed the United States is in giving our products equitable treatment, and how willing it is to remove tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade. ”

“ We reject the claim that education is not getting its proper share of the national budget. Indeed, allocations to education have increased considerably during the last five years, compared to previous years. And we have instituted programs that go well beyond classroom training to provide skills training to out-of-school youth and to adults. ”

“ And what we have learned, what we have sown and reaped during this critical and crucial period of ferment, constitutes the starting point of the work of this assembly- Indeed, it forms the foundation of this body, without which our lofty goals would be hollow and frail and our efforts mired in the paralysis and chaos that proved the downfall of the old society.
The crises we have overcome and the struggle we have had to wage are too recent to be forgotten. ”

“ We shall now seek to enlarge the democratic dialogue among all sectors of society and shall exert all efforts to ensure that violence does not subvert or re­place the free exchange of opinions and ideas, that dialogue should begin in this seat of representative government and must extend to every forum in our country. ”

“ The program which makes the tenant-farmer not only a free man but a leading participant in the national effort to make the country fully self-reliant remains the cornerstone of the reforms of the New Society and will continue to mobilize the best efforts and substantial resources of the government. ”

“ The incumbency of incompetents in local governments, in the event of an election prematurely called, locates them in an unwarranted position of advantage that could result in the distortion of the process of strengthening the political leadership. ”

“ Dominating our foreign policy agenda are our trade and security negotia­tions with the United States, our trade treaty negotiations with Japan, and the increasing number of decisions we are called upon every day to make with our partners in ASEAN.
With the United Stales, what is involved is the review of a historic relation­ship that has grown in war and in peace; and the searching question above all is how long and under what terms, shall we allow American forces to make use, if at all, of our military bases in Clark and Subic, among others. ”

“ Equally vital to a sound employment situation is the development of our human resources through education and manpower training. This social pro­gram represents today one of the heaviest commitments of government, and it will continue to be a high priority in the new Five-Year Plan. I commend this priority program to this assembly. ”