Ferdinand Marcos

“ The agenda for our nation is marked by three basic plans. There is first, the political normalization process and the strengthening of the barangays and the participation in the plans of the youth of the land specially through the Kabataang Barangay; second, the greater emphasis on rural development; and third the long range socio-economic development plans.
Development, as we have seen during all these past years, generates its own dynamic, multiplying the tasks and cares of the nation, even as it alters the circumstances of our lives and our society. ”

“ For development can easily make hazardous the lives of individuals in our society, and generate social and economic problems on a grand scale.
Finally, our new plan seeks to harness the tremendous human resources potential of the country. To develop these resources, however, calls for vigorous effort to improve the physical, intellectual and material well-being of the individual.
It is here where the economic development and social development must move in concert. For economic growth to fully take off, we must mobilize to the full the resources of our population ”

“ And more important, I have yet to experience a more concrete expression of the kind of optimism and confidence that is resurgent in our country today.
We are a nation that is changing before our very eyes; five years have not settled us in the cake of habit and custom. Regardless of what we have accomplished, we continue to be young, enterprising, and vigorous. ”

“ For this is preeminently the time to turn our experience during the last five years of crisis leadership into new viable structures of our political life. This is the time to test whether the efforts devoted to rebuilding political relations between government and governed, to molding new forms for citizen participation, can now find life in more permanent structures and policies. ”

“ We have successfully curbed inflation, which is the many-headed hydra of our modern economic world, from an alarming figure of 40 percent in 1972, to 7.2 at present. Our international reserves have risen to a phenomenal 1.5 billion U.S. dollars from the moribund position in 1972. 15. There is a boom in investments, from domestic as well as foreign sources, reflecting confidence in our economy—in the way it is being managed and in the long-term possibilities it holds for the investor. ”

“ I have often thought in the past five years of the man who is the object of all our efforts in establishing the New Society. Because he is the average Filipino, he lives in the barrio and works at a farm. When all the programs we have launched and all the changes we have sought will reach him, and I am determined that this will be sooner rather than later, he will be able to lead a life of dignity without any unfulfilled basic wants. ”

“ The world is passing through a period of transition in which many of the old issues that once decreed the patterns of our relationship have become irrele­vant. Food and development, not politics, are the central issues of our time. ”

“ But we must clearly strive now to bring our population growth rate down to 2.1 percent by 1982, and to 1.8 percent by 1987.
Thirdly, it is a matter of national policy that economic activities be designed to promote the greater utilization of our human resources. The development of manpower skills will be aligned with the requirements of growth. And labor exports which have been temporarily allowed to ease under-employment will increasingly be restrained as productive domestic employment opportunities are created. ”

“ There is a corresponding increase in savings and time deposits from seven billion pesos to about 24 billion pesos. If extremist agitators or the Left and the Right have found it difficult to stampede workers into illegal rallies, demonstration, and strikes, it is because the combined effects of rising employment and wages have reinforced the faith of the workers in themselves, in their future and the New Society. But the New Society has protected not only the wages of the workers but also their total sense of economic security. ”

“ We have to improve our area coverage, from the biggest of our cities to the remotest of our rural communities.
Secondly, we must in vest a greater portion of our resources in the education and cultural development of our people. Recent reforms undertaken in the educational system to reorient and improve the quality of education must now be followed by intensive efforts to develop workable programs particularly for out-of-school youth, and for adult education. Manpower development must strive to cover a wider circle of beneficiaries and must include a greater number of skills and crafts. ”

“ Greater technology transfer from the advanced countries obviously must seep into the national economic effort, but there must also be development from within of appropriate science and technology. We must invest substantially in research and technological development, and we must strive to utilize indigenous materials in agriculture and industry. ”

“ It is the result of years of patient and resolute effort. And if we stand today upon anew threshold of possibilities, it is because we have not denied the nation the kind of nurture and vigilance that it required. ”

“ As employees, they now enjoy security of employment tenure. They cannot be dismissed without just cause and without the permission of the Secretary of Labor, unlike before martial law when the employer could virtually dismiss them at will by merely paying their separation pay. ”

“ Though we have taken the momentous step of opening ties with the Com­munist countries and of identifying our cause with the nations of the Third World, we see many problems in international relations that require more than ever the steadfast pursuit of an independent foreign policy. ”

“ The development of human resources requires three stages of nurture, each of which is vital and paramount.
Firstly, we shall need to devote more and more attention to the problems of health, nutrition and housing in our country. The delivery of basic social services, particularly in the rural sector, must be considered as a sine qua non to the total rural development program. ”

“ First, in order to ensure the balanced growth of the whole economy and the whole country, the new national plan sets forth the vigorous development of the rural sector.
In line with this, we have adopted the integrated area development approach which ensures the linkage of various factors critical to the uplift of depressed areas—infrastructure, rural electrification, irrigation, credit facilities, market­ing networks, basic social services, and community development projects. ”

“ In the field of unionism, the New Society has given the Filipino workers the first optimum opportunity for self-development. The dismantling of Congress, the private armies, and the whole apparatus of oligarchy at the inception of martial law opened up new, vast areas for unionization. ”

“ We have succeeded in effective­ly employing this authority to begin to establish the infrastructure of a New Society in the acceleration of economic growth, in the democratization of land, public resources and economic opportunities, in the reform of institutions and in the reestablishment of a stable public order where the rights of all, especially of the majority, can be protected. ”

“ Tourism has multiplied by nearly 600 per cent—from a measly 168,000 in 1972 to nearly 700,000 in 1977—and despite the economic crisis that hit the world at the same time that we were building the tourism infrastruc­ture of our country, we continue to attract a fair share of the world’s travelers. ”

“ The streamlining of government to suit the temper and the demand of the times has made it possible for us to render service outside the old calculus of official possibilities and public expectations, and today the highest official of the land is mandated to go down to the rural areas and serve the people. ”

“ The Gross National Product has more than doubled from eight billion three hundred twenty-five million dollars in 1972 to nearly 18 billion dollars today. In 1972, the rate of GNP growth was 4.9 percent. In the last five years, the GNP has grown yearly by an average rate of three percent. This average rate of growth under the management of the crisis government was raised up to 9.6 percent when the world economy was booming and kept from falling below 5.9 percent when the world economy was in severe recession. ”

“ The normalization process is an ineluctable development of the progress towards growth and stability we have made during the past five years, and it remains mainly a question of how wisely and prudently we can manage this transition to full normality. ”

“ There will of course always be the danger that in this critical transition, we may lose many of the vital gains we have made and the society will dissolve once more into the factionalism and chaos of the past. ”

“ We have reason to believe that what we have achieved during the past few years in our relations with the Communist countries, particularly the People’s Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, constitutes a significant start towards building peace and progress in our part of the world. ”

“ We complete today the first five years of crisis government, yet it is not towards the past to which our thoughts are beamed. We think of the many changes and developments that have taken place in our country during this half-decade, but they only call to mind the labors and the tasks ahead. ”

“ We envision also a drop in net foreign capital inflow from the present 6.5 percent of GNP to about three percent by 1982, as a result of export diversification and the increased capability of the economy to raise funds from domestic sources.
Between 1978 and 1979, we expect a major turning point in the economy to occur. Agriculture and industry will exhibit almost equal shares of total net domestic product. And after 1979, industry will account for an increasing share of total net domestic product while agriculture will register an oppositive trend. ”

“ The barangay in which he lives will not be without the services of electricity for his modest house, of a schoolhouse for the education of his children, and of a health center for the sick members of his family. His children will be able to choose to farm or to make their living employed in some small-scale industry. ”

“ On the whole, the ten-year plan period from 1978-87 is designed to solidify the gains from the institutional and administrative changes introduced during the first five years of crisis government, and to create greater national self-reliance, more balanced regional development, and greater social equity. In the external sector, we envision our national export promotion drive to relieve the pressure on the country’s balance of payments. ”

“ National security has been maintained against insurgency, the national territorial integrity has been preserved against secessionism, and peace and order have been decisively recovered from the private armies, the criminal syn­dicates and the ordinary criminals. ”

“ The old fears of Communist aggression have considerably died down, but we have yet to forge a strong and beneficial relationship with the Communist countries, particularly with the new regimes in Indochina. ”

“ Development activities must be properly located to meet environmental standards for air, water and land. Human settlements must be properly sited with due consideration for maintaining the ecological balance. ”

“ Fourth, we must progressively transform our energy source structure in order to utilize more effectively energy supplies for development purposes, and to achieve a safer mix of primary supplies. Our development program cannot afford the risk of supply disruptions, nor can it allow the wasteful utilization of expensive oil supplies. ”

“ Hundreds of sugar plantations, logging camps, fishing ventures, and industrial enclaves were for the first time made accessible to unionism. Hence, martial law has, in fact, expanded the right of the Filipino workers to self-organization and free collective bargaining. ”

“ This is a blueprint for the future that fully takes into account the various problems and challenges that the society will face in the coming years. But it also presumes a great degree of harmonization among the various sectors of national life, and a totality of effort on the part of our people particularly those in the rural areas. ”

“ It must therefore be our paramount concern now to increase, to expand and to promote our productive participation in ASEAN, in keeping with the long-term program which the member countries have enunciated for the regional community. ”

“ Secondly, it must be a matter of national policy that we maintain population growth at levels conducive to national welfare. This policy will be pursued without prejudice to the health status and religious beliefs of individuals. ”

“ Fourthly, domestic and foreign investments will continue to be encouraged especially in defined areas of priority. Current investment incentives as well as new incentives will be further rationalized or promulgated in order to stimulate and expand economic activity. ”

“ These plans have been evolved with the participation of the whole government machinery at all levels, national, regional and local. Moreover, the active involvement of the private sector has been an indispensable element in these planning efforts. Every effort was taken to involve our people in the planning process. ”