Excerpts from a Speech
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
During his visit to Lingayen, Pangasinan

[Delivered in Lingayen, Pangasinan, May 2, 1993]

I’LL TELL you a story about Lingayen Gulf. Twelve years ago I was invited by Mayor Marcelo C. Navarro of Baní to visit the coastal barangays of his hometown because, he said, I would find the best fishing and scuba areas there. So I went to visit him. I didn’t realize this would entail a ten-kilometer ride from the población over a very difficult dirt road to that barangay. But finally we got there. He had lined up the barangay captain and all the barangay kagawad to greet me, including the fisherfolk. And I went through the line, started shaking their hands. But as I shook each barangay official’s hand, I noticed that he had at least two or three missing fingers. What is the explanation for this? Very simple. The barangay officials had been involved in blast fishing, which is illegal. At that time, 12 years ago, that was probably the way they could survive.

Our Gulf War against poverty

Times have changed. Lingayen Gulf has deteriorated and maybe we had, as a country, become even poorer. And so I hope you realize that this Lingayen Gulf War is not just a war against illegal fishing. Neither is it just a war to preserve the resources of Lingayen Gulf and make it a source of sustainable livelihood and become an area for sustainable development for all of us. This is really a smaller part of our great war against poverty in Philippine society. This is a war against the lack of privilege, the lack of opportunity and the lack of resources for our people.

It is so unnecessary to be losing fingers or limbs or even lives just to get a daily catch of fish. Certainly you and I, with the God-given talents we have as human beings, plus our special talents as Pangasinenses and as Ilocanos, can do better to provide the marginalized people in our society with a better means of livelihood. And that is the greater challenge that faces us beyond preserving the Gulf.

Let me keep reminding you about the crippled fishermen in that barangay. They had to risk life and limb in order to catch enough to feed their families and maybe have a little extra—not much—for the education of their children. That is the challenge that faces us.

Penalizing environmental degradation

I have just come from China and what I saw there is a mix of some of the problems that also face us—the need to redistribute the wealth and power of the community. That is still a problem for them there. But they’re farther ahead than we are. I saw some of the good things they are doing—developing the countryside and putting together a balanced combination of agricultural modernization and productivity together with intense industrialization, at the same time respecting the need to preserve the environment.

In China those who violate environmental laws are punished quickly and severely. And what is admirable there is that a consensus prevails to preserve the environment because the Chinese see it as the key to their future growth and ultimate survival.

We are lucky because while we do want our penal system to be such, that we should be as harsh as possible to those who violate the environment, the penalties are not severe enough. I am saying we are lucky for now. But I am going to push for legislation that will harshly penalize violations of our ecological and environmental resources.

So let us spread this message: That it is from Lingayen Gulf and its environs and the resources around it where we shall derive our economic growth and our ultimate survival if we are to be, as we aspire to be, an economic dragon, at least a small economic dragon by the year 2000.

And so I hope you are all ready to join me in wading through the waters of Lingayen Gulf. It is like a baptism of sorts on this Sunday morning. And I am sure the Good Father will bless all of us in the name of the Lord when we go there and wet our feet, our hands, our faces, our waists, our chests, our arms in the waters of Lingayen Gulf, which we pledge to protect in this declaration of war.

Excerpts from a speech given during a
visit to Lingayen, Pangasinan, May 2, 1993