Fidel V. Ramos

“ We must become more efficient in our social processes and in our educational institutions. We must continue to make substantial investments in infrastructure, but this time, not merely depending on purely government expenditures but on wider private sector participation. We must make not just our business enterprises -- but the whole of national society -- competitive in the world by expanding research and development (R&D) in the emerging technologies and in education, especially in Science and Technology at all levels. ”

“ Ladies and Gentlemen of Congress -- I urge you to act now on economic measures I commended to this legislature last July 1995 -- one SONA ago. To complete our liberalization of the economy, let us repeal the remaining laws -- some enacted over 40 years ago -- that still limit economic growth and deny the Filipino consumers access to quality goods at lower prices. Development, indeed, exacts a price that must be paid by those who want it. ”

“ Now, I ask all of you for your support -- to give our government and our people in our Southern regions -- Christians, Muslims, Lumads, Filipinos all -- the MNLF, our soldiers, our policemen, and the people of our divided communities included -- this long-sought opportunity under our transitory arrangements to convert swords into plowshares. From every part of the globe, we do not lack examples of the futility of armed conflict as a way of settling ethnic, religious, economic, social and cultural differences. ”

“ Most crucial of all, we must pursue our earlier efforts towards a more disciplined, cohesive and convergent bureaucracy, and make our civil service an effective instrument of the modern state. We must improve government services to the people by cutting bureaucratic red tape. A professional bureaucracy requires government to compete with the private sector for talented people. ”

“ On this the dawning of our Centennial of Philippine independence, if there is one paramount achievement to which we Filipinos must dedicate ourselves, it is this -- that, by 1998, we Filipinos must show and prove to the world that we are finally a nation united. ”

“ Next year, we shall end 30 years of stringent economic programs under the IMF's watchful eyes -- and asserting full responsibility and credit for managing our economic growth and development into the 21st century. The IMF cites three reasons why our economy has overcome its historical cycles of boom and bust: First, growth today is being boosted by exports and investments -- and not by consumer spending or government pump-priming. Second, growth is being accompanied by some increase in private savings and not necessarily by increasing external debt or foreign loans. ”

“ In this government's search for peace, we have made a solid breakthrough. Within two years, I am confident we shall leave our country and people a legacy of better social cohesion and political unity -- on which future governments can build greater national capacity, stability and prosperity for all Filipinos. Erstwhile military rebels have been reintegrated into civil society -- even as the process of dealing with their grievances continues. Many of the reforms they suggest -- in our electoral practices, for example -- have been incorporated into our proposals to Congress. ”

“ We must keep accelerating growth and social equity -- until they become self-sustaining.
In agriculture, to guarantee productivity and profitability of our primary producers, we must speed up building irrigation systems, farm-to-market roads, post-harvest facilities; increase the flow of credit to our farmers, fisherfolk, and rural entrepreneurs; and optimize the role of women in agriculture. These must go hand-in-hand with our continuing effort to equip our farmers and those who make their living from the sea with the latest in technology. ”

“ The CTRP is the cornerstone of our government's effort to put the Filipino house in order -- and to gear up our economy for the coming era of free trade. Beyond these, tax reform is also the key component in our effort to compel the irresponsible rich to take up their rightful share of the civic burden. Right now, it is our salaried employees and the middle class who bear the bulk of the tax load. ”

“ Competitiveness comes from an open economy -- from a stable political system and from a united, hard-working people. Competitiveness comes from modern infrastructure, and from work-people trained in cutting-edge technology.
The 1995 world competitiveness report praises the extreme openness of our national culture: The availability of competent senior managers and skilled workers, the way we have internationalized the Philippine economy, and the way our exports have grown, in both goods and services. ”

“ We have demonstrated our own capability to manage our economy towards stability and sustained growth -- earning the respect of the global economic community and making it unnecessary for us to depend on the IMF's "Seal of Good Housekeeping". ”

“ We seek stronger protection of the integrity of the Filipino family -- as the building block of the national community, and to guard the basic rights particularly of women, children and young people, indigenous katutubos, the handicapped, the aged and our veterans. ”

“ Protection of the family and social integration of the marginalized sectors, especially disadvantaged women, also call for the passage of several other bills, including one long overdue which reclassifies rape as a crime -- not only against chastity -- but against a person. We are the first country, in fact, after the United Nations Conference on Women held in Beijing last September 1995, to direct all government agencies to set aside at least 5% of their budgets for gender-equality concerns for the benefit of Filipino women. ”

“ We Filipinos do not subscribe to the "grow now, clean up later" approach of some of the countries that have industrialized ahead of us. We are cleaning up as we grow: We intend to live up to the distinction given by Newsweek International last May of being the world's first emerging "green tiger." I, therefore, ask Congress to pass the Environment Code that is still pending in the two chambers. As we strive for development compatible with the carrying capacity of our ecosystem, we shall need a clear basis for allocating our lands to various competing uses. ”

“ We have expanded our social reform agenda to cover -- not just the 20 poorest provinces in the Philippines -- but to all 78 provinces and 16 administrative regions because we are giving special attention also to fifth- and sixth-class municipalities -- where the bulk of our poor are to be found. In addition to being responsible for cleaning and greening their frontyards and backyards, I have also made local government executives accountable for the reduction of poverty in their respective provinces, cities and municipalities. ”

“ Beyond trade and investment, APEC is also about cooperation to develop our human resources, strengthen our Small and Medium Enterprises, and share technology and knowledge, among others -- all these leading to a regional community anchored on mutual benefit and mutual respect. the 1996 APEC leaders' meeting in our country this November will have great significance for our people -- in terms of new jobs, higher incomes, and opportunities for technology transfer and market access in an interdependent Asia-Pacific. ”

“ The Magna Carta for Small Enterprises increased the loanable funds set aside by the banking sector for SMEs from about ₱16 billion in 1992 to some ₱80 billion during the past 4 years -- but this has not been quite enough. our export gains show we can compete globally. While our traditional markets -- the United States and Japan -- still account for more than half of all our exports, the volume and value of the goods that we ship to ASEAN and to East Asia are rising notably. ”

“ Today, the challenge is to complete our victory over pessimism, stagnation and decline. Today, the challenge is to give our next generation of leaders a firm foundation on which to build peace and prosperity for all our people. The correctness of our reforms so far has been validated by the growth of the economy and a new tempo of nation-wide self-reliance, even at the grass roots, as expressed in our battle-cry ”

“ Our country's opening to the global economy -- and the uncertainties raised by big-power configurations emerging in our region and in other regions -- all these have made necessary a broadening of our contacts and friendships in the world. The strength of our external security depends, above all else, upon good relations with our immediate neighbors. ”

“ But since our work-force is growing at virtually the same rate as we are creating jobs, all our efforts have cut down unemployment and underemployment only marginally. We are, however, seeing improvements in the quality of jobs. and industrial peace keeps on getting better. The marked decline in strikes continues: nationwide, they dropped below the 100-mark in both 1994 and 1995. But we must pursue a renewed -- more vigorous -- more focused -- effort to generate new jobs of the kind that assure our workers and their families stable incomes and improving quality of life. ”

“ In addition to our "doctors to the barrio program" to insure the delivery of health services to distant areas, we have pursued innovative and preventive health care programs which have gained worldwide recognition. In basic education, we have achieved almost universal access to elementary and high schools over the past four years. Now we are beginning to modernize our school system -- both by providing them hi-tech means to broaden pupils' access to information and knowledge, and enhancing teacher-training processes, especially in mathematics, science and technology. ”

“ We have to speed up the land distribution and productivity program between now and 1998, and Congress must both increase the ceiling of the Agrarian Reform Fund and expand its sources, and improve the adjudication system for agrarian reform. ”

“ In our drive against crime, we are making some progress -- in reducing crime incidence, in improving our crime-fighting capabilities, and in fighting violent crimes. We have also made substantial gains in further reducing kidnapping and bank robberies, with better cooperation now resulting from community participation in crime prevention and information gathering. ”

“ They have arisen from policy mistakes against which we have exerted collective effort and political will to set them aright -- today. Our heroic generation of 1896 animated our people's ideals and aspirations. ”

“ While we have provided 3,500 scholarship slots per year to train students to become technicians, scientists and engineers, we should at least treble this number in the next two years. In agrarian reform, we have achieved significant progress during the last four years in the distribution of agricultural land to our landless farmers. ”

“ Although we have increased the salaries of civil servants below undersecretary level by an average of 40% since 1992, even now our levels of pay cannot approximate those paid by business and the professions. ”

“ Other priority measures long awaited by our basic sectors include the proposed Fisheries Code for our fisherfolks, the Bill on Ancestral Domain for our indigenous peoples, and the repeal of Presidential Decree 772 which would decriminalize squatting and address the issues regarding the resettlement of the urban poor. ”

“ But it identifies our country's biggest liabilities as the inadequacy of its infrastructure, its still-primitive transport systems, and the inefficiency of its distribution of goods and services. These, despite the gigantic strides we had made in the last four years in building roads, bridges, airports, seaports, power plants, and other public facilities. The report also warns how dangerously our human development lags behind those of our competitors -- our lack of physicians; the continuing drain of our skilled workers ”