Before we go on to this morning’s business, let me say a few words of welcome — particularly to our friends from the political opposition and the private sector.

I have called this council to deliberate on a range of issues and policies vital to our security and the national interest.

That our agenda covers a lot of ground merely reflects the spread — and the complexity — of our problems.

If we are to deal with them intelligently and systematically, we need the benefit of your collective wisdom.

This council is the closest grouping we have to a council of leaders. I intend to consult with it intensively. And I hope everyone of you will continue to give it your time and your talent.
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.

As the first Asian people to recover our liberty after World War II, we had a headstart on all our neighbors. Yet today we lag behind almost every on 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 parochial 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.

Thailand overtook us in 1981. Now the average Thai has an income almost exactly double the ordinary Filipinos.

And Indonesia is catching up fast. If our two economies continue to grow at their present rates, Indonesia will surpass us before the end of the decade.

We must put a new purpose — and a new direction — to our common life.

Not only do we need to think about international politics in a different way. We need new intellectual attitudes to replace our narrow notions of the world and our place in it. We must begin to appreciate how economic and technological forces are changing the globe before our eyes.

The depth and speed of change in the region and in the world in recent months have been unprecedented. All of these events and trends have profound implications for our security and our national interest. They present challenges we must face up to — and also opportunities we can exploit.

To cope with this fast -changing world, our diplomacy must learn to be subtle, flexible, and focused. In our straitened circumstances, we must live by Churchill’s admonition: “the reason for having diplomatic relations is not to confer a compliment, but to secure a convenience.”

We must make every foreign relation pay off in some practical benefit to our national interest.

In our time, national security is founded ultimately on a country’s economic vigor, political unity and social cohesion.

This is why we shall be scanning — apart from our external environment — the peace process my government has initiated, and its campaign against criminality; as well as its efforts to ease our power crisis.

These are all crucial to our basic task of returning our economy to a growth mode — and easing the poverty that oppresses so many of our people.

Poverty is rooted in lack of autonomy, in being powerless. To my mind, the key to extirpating Philippine poverty is releasing the social energy latent in the masses of our people — by enabling them to take control of their lives.

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 security.

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

We may lack the hardware of war. But we shall not be defenseless for as long as we stand together. The beginning of national security lies in our social cohesion — in our collective striving to make this country as great as it can be.

Once again, thank you all for coming here. Let us now proceed to our work for this day.