INTRODUCTION
Your excellencies; my co-workers in government; other advocates and champions of power development in the countryside.

Today, we have taken another giant step to boost development efforts in the countryside by supplying many of our rural areas with much-needed electric power.

This memo of agreement between the National Electrification Administration and our government financing institutions establishes the vital mechanism to install 104 units of mini-hydro generators in remote areas all over the country and provide these places with a total of 51 megawatts. These units form the greater part of the 156-unit donation of our foreign friends — the governments of the People’s Republic of China, the United Kingdom, France, Norway and Australia.
TOWARDS “COUNTRYSIDE DEVELOPMENT 2000!!!”
For those of us in the urban areas, who are currently suffering from acute power and energy shortage, 51 megawatts may be a mere drop in the bucket. But to the direct beneficiaries of these mini-hydro power plants — in such far-flung places as Palauig, Zambales; Siaton, Negros Oriental; Balili, Bohol; and Isabela, Basilan — these mini-hydro generators are powerful engines that will light up their houses at night, irrigate their farms and run their rice mills. In this way, we not only assure them of better food security but greater productivity and higher incomes.

But more than providing our rural residents with the amenities that are taken for granted by urban folks, these mini-hydro plants spell the incorporation of many rural areas into the mainstream of development.
WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS
We are especially grateful to our donors. They are helping us to equitably spread the bounties of development to those who need them most. They have also affirmed their faith in our ability to rise from poverty and rejoin the contest to become one of the newly developed countries by the turn of the century.

Your excellencies — the ambassador of the People’s Republic of China, the ambassador of France, the ambassador of Norway, the ambassador of Australia, and the charge d’affaires of the United Kingdom — I assure your governments and peoples that we Filipinos are deeply grateful for this assistance as well as the other forms of support you have given us. These mini-hydro plants will spawn not only material benefits: these have also fortified our hope and encouraged us to work harder so that we can achieve the goals we have set in our Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan for 1993 to 1998 or as we call it — “Philippines 2000!!!”
CLOSING
I congratulate likewise the national electrification administration for pursuing its commitment to develop renewable energy resources, this time through its continuing mini-hydro program. I hereby direct the NEA to immediately complete its study for the optimum utilization of these 52 mini-hydro power plants so that we can hasten the growth of additional rural communities.

I also congratulate the GFI’s involved in this memo of agreement, the Development Bank of the Philippines, the GSIS, the SSS and the land bank for all their efforts to hasten development in the countryside.

Mabuhay ang ating mga kaibigan!

Mabuhay ang bagong NEA!

Mabuhay ang ating mga government financing institutions!

Mabuhay tayong lahat!

Salamat po sa inyo.