Speech
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
At the 19th Anniversary of the Jesus Is Lord Church

[Delivered at the Quirino Grandstand, October 5, 1997]

Uniting our
two nations

WE FILIPINOS truly have a compelling need to invoke the power of united prayer at this crucial time. We must earnestly ask God to intensify the healing process. Reconciling, healing and restoring are what this nation needs—which was born in violent revolution nearly a hundred years ago.

Our urgent need today is to reconcile the division that persists among our people—between those who live by their labor and those who live on the labor of others.

Brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ—my message to you—and through you, to all our people—is plain and simple: we will not have long-term stability and social order until we reconcile the historical struggle between the few who are rich and powerful and the many who are poor and powerless in the Philippines.

But this reconciliation must be based on a recognition of the equal moral worth of the richest billionaire and the poorest tenant-farmer.

And this reconciliation can be achieved only by the people themselves, sweeping away our society of unequals and installing in its place a community of brotherhood, compassion and mutual respect.

Historically, government in this country has always been in the possession of the higher and richer classes.

From the beginning of our life as a nation, men of property have been able to exert an overriding influence on the actual course of government. In this country, wealth has always been able to throw its weight on to the scales of justice.

Our people’s historical struggle

But it is not the possession of wealth in itself—but the possession of virtue and wisdom—that qualifies men to rule over their fellows.

The historic struggle between the people and the oligarchy has always been a struggle over the political privileges of wealth; the power of property owners; and the protection of special interests.

Even under the supposedly democratic rule of one-man-one-vote—promulgated during our Commonwealth period—landowners and those who control corporate concentrations of wealth have been able to exert undue influence on the actual course of government.

Even the 1986 Revolution that restored our democracy after the interval of strongman rule merely restored the premartial-law oligarchy to economic and political power. And this restoration of the old elite canceled out ordinary people’s gains in civil liberty—because no political system can build a nation for as long as its policies promote inequality and stifle the spirit of enterprise in ordinary people.

The voices of discord are rising once again, but as the Holy Book tells us: “There is nothing more detestable to the Lord than a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.” [Proverbs 6:19]

In 1992 I campaigned for the presidency on a platform of “People Empowerment”—to make politics serve, not the family, the faction or the party, but the nation: and to give ordinary people a meaningful share in making the policy decisions that affect their daily lives and the future of their children.

Cast down, but not destroyed

During that difficult and stressful period from 1986 to 1992, under President Corazon Aquino’s Administration, when there were three major insurgencies and massive disasters that confronted the nation, we did not lose heart. We carried on as best we could and survived. Indeed, as the Bible says: “We were troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we were perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed .” [II Corinthians 4:8-9)

From the very beginning—in fact from my inaugural speech from this very same place—at high noon on June 30,1992—I set as my Administration’s strategic goal the restructuring of the entire regime of regulation and control that rewards people who do not produce at the expense of those who do.

I said then that we must change “a system that enables persons with political influence to extract wealth without effort from the economy.”

And over these past five years we have made significant headway toward achieving this goal.

What we have been able to do

We have been able to break up some of the more powerful monopolies and cartels into a better pattern of liberalization and sharing—in telecommunications; in banking and the insurance industry; in air-and-sea transport.

And we have opened up the economy and exposed the regime of protectionism in national industry to the competition and the opportunities of the expanding global market.

To these reforms, the economy responded almost immediately: since 1992 the gross national product has increased from a mere 1.5 percent and grown to 6.9 percent in 1996. This year—despite the currency crisis that has afflicted many parts of East Asia—the economy should grow vigorously still.

We have also devolved and decentralized the authority of the central government in Metro Manila and seen to it that ordinary people are no longer excluded from their direct participation in making the policy decisions that affect their daily lives. In the process, we have also awakened the spirit of enterprise, which has begun to animate the numerous growth centers—some 65 of them— throughout the archipelago.

As mandated by our objective to empower our people, I, as your President, regularly consult with the chosen representatives of workpeople, the urban poor, the handicapped, the rural folk, the indigenous communities, the elderly and the young, the media, the religious and small and big business—and especially the chosen leaders of Filipino women—all of whom have historically been treated as second-class citizens in their own country.

We have done a great deal. But there is a great deal more to do. And now resistance to social, economic and political reform is again building up—just as our country enters the threshold of the centennial of Philippine Independence and the new millennium.

The people’s responsibility to continue reform

You can rest assured the Ramos Administration will continue to do all it can—during over these nine months that remain of my presidency—to focus on those structural reforms that are still urgently needed.

Even out of office, I shall continue to speak out against inequality, injustice and class tyranny.

And somebody else must carry on. Like Aaron and Hur whose able support of the weary hands of Moses brought victory for the entire Israelite camp (Exodus 17:9-12). And it is you the people—my brothers and sisters—who, by your vote, must ensure the continuity of reform.

Now more than ever, we need unity, solidarity, teamwork—if we are to keep on reforming our social structures bit by bit—until the whole of national society becomes an efficient creator of wealth; and our nation is transformed into a haven of freedom and dignity for the least of our people.

One of the urgent tasks this Administration is compelled to leave to the next one is the thoroughgoing review of the 1987 Constitution—first, to remove all its impediments to economic efficiency; and, second, to strengthen its institutions of direct democracy: to give citizens a greater share in the initiation of public policy; and finally, to ensure that all Filipinos are empowered with the capacity to compete, and to share in the fruits of progress. This viewpoint also implies that the State cannot allow any interest group—no matter how powerful; no matter how well-intentioned—to set the nation’s civil agenda. Because that prerogative belongs entirely to the sovereign people, in their collective wisdom.

Giving the tao a stake in the economy

We must waste no time attuning ourselves to the rapidly changing world in which we must survive and prevail. And the key reform we must make is to give the common tao a real stake in the system—to give ordinary people a worthy share in the new prosperity of the 21st century.

This is the basic—the most urgent—reform, because power over a man’s subsistence and material needs amounts to power over his will—and ordinary Filipinos will never be truly free until they are empowered to determine the fullest possibilities of their lives.

Giving the tao a stake in this country’s development is the key reform—because if a person has a stake in something, he will move mountains; but if he does not, he will remain indifferent.

In our time, the advances in information and communications technology are making a more direct kind of democracy the appropriate mode of political rule in the era of knowledge the world is entering.

We must establish a new relationship between Government and people—based on mutual trust, on civic responsibility and on working together for the good of the national community.

The collective wisdom is superior

Brothers and sisters—you must keep reminding our leaders that rulers and governments derive their power from the people—and that the collective wisdom of the people is superior to the wisdom of any single leader or group of leaders.

Whatever we as a nation need to do cannot be done without the participation and consent of ordinary people—without their collective wisdom in policymaking; and without their collective conscience in making moral judgments.

And moral judgments should never be made on the basis of hasty perceptions, suspicions or mistrusts.

For the message of God is clear: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” (Isaiah 43:2-3A)

This is similarly articulated in the opening chapter of the holy Koran which says: “Thee only do we worship, and to Thee do we cry for help. Guide Thou us on the straight path,

“The path of those to whom Thou has been gracious;— with whom Thou art not angry, and who go not astray”

Even as we commemorate the centennial of our national uprising of 1896 to 1898—which is East Asia’s first anti-colonial revolution—let us not forget that our liberty still is incomplete. We have yet to free this country from the few who control its fortunes and rule k in their own interest.

Our task is to prepare our country for the Lord’s promise to the prophet Isaiah—”to create a new heaven and a new earth … where the sound of weeping and crying will be heard … no more.” (Isaiah 65:17-19)

Awakening the conscience of the rich

In this Holy Spirit, our Christian—and Muslim—goal is healing, reconciling and uniting. It is not to destroy the elite but to transform it: it is to awaken the conscience of the rich and powerful to the plight of the poor and powerless who share this land with them.

Our goal is not to divide but to unite the two separate and unequal nations that the Filipino people have been —throughout their history. And the only way we could do this is not to pull down the high and the mighty but to lift up the downtrodden and the lowly—to empower ordinary Filipinos, so that they can become the mass of a strong and self-confident people: sharing a community of equals and living peacefully together in the constant presence of the Lord.

Let us Filipinos now prove that we care and share and dare.