Address
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
At the 50th anniversary of Filipino-American Friendship Day

[Delivered at the Quirino Grand Stand, Rizal Park, July 4, 1996]

Fil-American friendship
in the new century

WE HAVE gathered today to salute the unique and enduring friendship that has bound Filipinos and Americans for many decades.

Ours is a friendship built on values we hold in common. Values that uphold democracy, religious and press freedom, human rights and individual liberty.

We have through our national experiences come to the same conclusion that a free people, with free markets in a free country, can overcome any obstacle that stands in the way of human dignity and the fulfillment of the human right.

Civic virtue builds countries

We have on separate courses imbued our countrymen and countrywomen with an undying love of country, based on a deep attachment to the native soil and to indigenous institutions that protect our liberties and promote our aspirations. We have with our own homegrown culture formed a firm conviction that it is individual worth and civic responsibility, not naked political power or abusive economic force, that build communities as well as countries.

Although our countries met with a clash of arms at the turn of this century, we quickly recognized the essential truth that cooperation and not conflict would best serve our national interests.

Thus through the years of limited self-rule and of the Commonwealth, we Filipinos never lost, not for a single day, our dream of final independence. We worked willingly and wholeheartedly with the Americans, who came to our shores as conquerors but who left as friends. And we have shown that Filipinos and Americans, motivated by the same fierce love of freedom, can fight shoulder to shoulder in its defense. When the world was darkened by fascist occupation, our freedom fighters—Filipino and American alike—kept the promise of liberation burning and democracy alive.

Fighting the good fight

When the world we had restored to peace confronted new tyrannies, we filled the breach once more and, united with other nations, defended freedom on the battlefields of Korea.

We fought the good fight, yet again in the long struggle against communist aggression which threatened the integrity of nations large and small. And in our own time of trial in the Philippines when our people sought to restore democracy after years of dictatorship, we knew we had American friends behind us. Today we are joined in another mission. This time however we are not called to combat but to devote ourselves to the challenge of energizing and rebuilding a tired old world.

We have survived the Cold War. The nightmare of an imminent nuclear holocaust is behind us. Political democracy and the market economy have claimed great victories in many countries including our own. But these achievements, profound though they may be, seem to have produced little lasting joy. Uncertainty abounds. Cynicism, confusion, chaos and even cataclysm reign in many places.

All nations of the world are in the grip of change: change woven by global markets that never sleep; by technologies that never tire; and by innovations that expand the range of human endeavor as never before. Everywhere there are fears. Fears over the loss of jobs, over the marginalization of the poor and the weak, over the weakening of traditions and over the viability of new peace formulas.

But it is precisely through change that we will redeem our world, as we have done time and again in the past. We cannot retreat from the world. Isolation is no longer a salvation.

Change will breathe new life into our societies. It will bring us what we need to build up markets, to liberate the productive energies of people, and to move them toward the sustainable development of nations.

In the Philippines we have embraced change. Change for the better, for national renewal and for our children’s future. Change is the motive force that drives the political, economic and social reform policies of the Ramos Administration. It is what moves us to heighten our competitiveness, to open our markets at home and to access new markets abroad.

Where tomorrow lies

We have emerged from the doldrums. We have regained confidence in ourselves and in our capability to seize tomorrow.

Where does this tomorrow lie?

For the Philippines and equally, in my view, for the United States, it must lie along the path of cooperation between ourselves and with others in the Asia-Pacific region. The logic of this basic tenet is inescapable. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation member economies embrace the Philippines’ largest markets, biggest foreign investors and major economic partners.

As for the United States, trade with APEC members has eclipsed its transatlantic trade. Moreover, the Asia-Pacific region contains the markets that will propel much of the world’s projected growth.

We must therefore brave the challenges of building a new regional order, through the ASEAN Regional Forum for regional security, and through the APEC process for the regional economy.

We will build our future stability and security on further and more intense consultation and dialogue with countries of the region, in place of the confrontation and rivalry of the Cold War.

We will forge long-term Asia-Pacific progress and prosperity with closer economic integration and interdependence, instead of protectionism and discrimination.

A bulwark of regional security

The Philippines is this year’s chairman of APEC, and we intend to use this opportunity to promote freer regional trade and investment by expanding the business sector’s role in engineering growth.

If we work together more intimately, and no doubt we will, then the APEC Leaders’ Meeting in Subic will mark an important advance in spreading the benefits of economic growth, social development and technology exchange among peoples of the Asia-Pacific region. And this would be a just reward for the leadership and vision that have gone into moving APEC forward, starting with the first APEC leaders’ meeting in Seattle, and followed through in Bogor and Osaka.

As we design a new regional order, we will be aided by the bilateral solidarity that Filipinos and Americans enjoy, and which is invaluable to the ties which have been forged between our two countries.

Our security relationship is anchored firmly on our Mutual Defense Treaty, which remains a bulwark safeguarding the peace and security of the whole Asia-Pacific region.

Our shared affinities in business, the professions, language, culture and the arts should make it easier for us to develop the vast economic potential of our bilateral partnership.

In this effort, our Filipino-American communities here in the Philippines and in the United States can reinforce our links and initiate modes of mutually beneficial cooperation.

Subic and Clark stand out as symbols of the future. Once sites of America’s largest military bases in Asia, they are now on their way to becoming dynamic regional business hubs. And America is still in Subic, although it is Federal Express and not the United States Navy that now spans the region from the Philippines.

Before I end, let me take this opportunity to express my appreciation to President Bill Clinton, who has been my partner in moving Philippine-American relations onto a new track.

My visit to Washington in November 1993, and the visit of President Clinton to Manila in November the following year, were what began this process of transformation. Our progress was further consolidated when I visited the United States again last October. Our partnership has now gained greater momentum.

Building a better future

As we look upon the promise of a new Asia-Pacific century, let us reaffirm the enduring nature of our friendship, which has served us so well through the years. Let us keep working together then, with the candor and respect that come not only with comradeship but also with the commitment and energy we expect of partners for mutual benefit.

We owe this not simply to the memory of past events or to ourselves. We also owe this to future generations of Filipinos and Americans, who should be able to enjoy a unique friendship in their day as we are doing in ours.

For if Filipinos and Americans can no longer be friends, then our region will be a sadder and perhaps more dangerous place to live in, as it will be deprived of the sanctuary that amity and common effort have provided both our peoples for a long time.

Let us now look forward—together—to a new century of friendship, of common achievement, guided by the love of freedom, our respect for the rights of our citizens, and our unshakable commitment to building a better future.