Address

of

His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos

President of the Philippines

At the Regional Development Council-Cabinet Consultative Workshop on the Medium-term Development Plan

[

Released on November 19, 1992

]

The Medium-term

Development Plan

THIS Regional Development Council-Cabinet Consultative Workshop was convened primarily to take up vital issues on the successor Medium-term Philippine Development Plan, especially as it relates to our regions.

This Plan is to be the blueprint of Philippine development over the next six years. That our agenda covers a lot of ground merely reflects the spread—and the complexity—of our problems.

We may not agree on its causes—but we all realize there is something terribly wrong about the way we’ve been trying to run our affairs since independence.

A nation turned too much inward

As the first Asian people to recover our liberty after World War II, we had a head start on all our neighbors. Yet today we lag behind almost everyone else in a region growing at the world’s fastest rate.

One reason, I think, is that over these past 45 years we Filipinos have been turned too much inward. We have been absorbed in partisan political quarrels, our industries we have coddled much too long behind protective walls. But of course the world didn’t wait. While we contemplated our navels, our neighbors one by one passed us by.

And if we do not shape up now, we shall fall farther and farther behind.

I’m grateful to those participants who have come from the far regions—enduring the distance and inconvenience in your striving to be one with us in pursuing our shared vision of progress. It is your voices that we need to hear most.

This Government’s primary reason for being is to uproot poverty and give the Filipino a better quality of life. All the priorities of my Administration are directed to that paramount goal.

Keeping pace with Asian tigers

The need to embark on a drive for development has never been more urgent than it is now—when our economy is struggling to match the dynamism of our next-door neighbors. If we are to attain our dream of becoming a newly industrializing country by the turn of the century, we have to keep pace with these Asian tigers. And we should start right now.

In our protracted war against poverty, and in the effort to improve our lives, we have resolved to use one basic strategy. In general terms, this is to undertake a sustained process of people empowerment through human development and world competitiveness.

I believe fervently that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people. This, to me, is what democracy is all about.

To achieve all we need to do, we must develop a culture of competence and seriousness: there can be no playing politics with national welfare.

Adlai Stevenson warns us—wisely—that “a feeble nation is the result of self-inflicted wounds.”

The specific tactics, policies and goals that will carry out this strategy are what will be contained in the Medium-term Philippine Development Plan for 1993-98. It is to seek your participation in its preparation that we have asked you here. This Plan will guide all national and regional development activities in the critical years during which we shall be pushing our economy to a maximum sustainable growth.

Its major targets cover three major areas—growth in our gross national product; a corresponding increase in income per head of population; and a significant reduction in the incidence of poverty. These three targets shall provide a reasonable yardstick of our performance, with the help of the private sector.

While this Plan seeks a better life for all, it also calls on each of us to make sacrifices in deference to the general welfare. Let me emphasize that we are striving to make this Plan as rational and as optimal as possible. In so doing, the Plan’s coordinators are working to ensure that it does not inordinately favor any sector or region.

I, therefore, call on everyone to leave behind narrow, parochial interests and rally behind the interest of the country in making it economically competitive with other countries.

While guarding the national interest, however, the Plan will remain sensitive to the real needs of its constituents—particularly to the needs of marginalized sectors and regions. These sectors and regions need as much assistance they can get, to enable them to exploit their comparative advantage.

Positive discrimination

While pursuing our growth objectives, we shall not hesitate to discriminate positively in favor of those in dire need of special forms of assistance. A crucial part of our agenda is to establish “safety nets” for those of our people who are rendered immobile and powerless by poverty and its consequences— ill-health and ignorance.

To get the most benefits from the resources that will be used in carrying out this Plan, we are firming up an accompanying Investment Program that will rationalize the flow of public funds into priority activities. This program will be an objective guide to the allocation of resources at both the national and regional levels. It will ensure that all are evenly benefited by these resources in the long run.

We are aware of the need to harmonize and speed up all development endeavors. We are prepared to take steps—and impose sanctions, if necessary—to ensure everyone’s compliance with the Plan’s mandate and provisions. It goes without saying that we shall be extraordinarily vigilant against those who waste precious resources for improper uses and purposes.

After this two-day workshop, we expect that regional priorities will be neatly dovetailed with the national Plan. We also expect that the allocation of regional investments will be firmly based on agreed-upon agenda criteria, and that the regional dimension of the nationally set priority subsector activities will have obtained everyone’s concurrence.

We take pride in being the first Administration to adopt the process of reconciling national and regional plans with priority subsector activities. This is to ensure that development activities at all levels are based on what we all consider national priorities for the next six years.

A different Administration

I would like to think that this is also a manifestation of the cooperative and consensual spirit that permeates the country’s present leadership.

I hereby instruct the Cabinet Secretaries of the line agencies that will carry out the Plan to maximize their sectoral linkages. As development managers, they must involve the various groups and sectors concerned—assigning them specific roles and responsibilities to ensure the success of the Plan.

I also enjoin the Steering Committee to strive to achieve as wide a support and acceptance as possible of this Plan.

Finally, let me assure everyone that if previous Plans had failed because of a lack of commitment from both Government and its people, my Administration will be different. It is committed to ensuring that this Plan will open for us the development horizon we Filipinos have been looking for.

Source

:

Presidential Museum and Library