Speech
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
At the Annual luncheon forum of the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of the Philippines
Delivered at the Manila Hotel, Manila, October 17, 1996]
Real problems
and false issues
WHEN I WAS PREPARING to enter politics in mid-1991, I thought I was getting sage advice from former US President Calvin Coolidge when he explained why he was a man of few words. “I found out early in life,” he said, “that you never have to explain something you have not said.”
Yet to my complete shock, over these past four years, I have discovered that in politics you must explain again and again what you have not said.
I thought it best that we start this annual meeting—between the President and the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of the Philippines—with this observation, so that we can quickly finish with the explanations of things unsaid—and move on to more urgent and present matters concerning the business of the nation.
To start off, I have never said that I intend to run for a second term in the presidency—but rather the exact opposite. Some politicians seem to know better what lies ahead of me. If so, you must ask them how they have succeeded in divining the future.
I have not sponsored any movement for amending the Constitution that would enable me to run for another term. Some groups apparently have ideas of this kind. If so, you just ask them their reasons why they are pressing this initiative—and while you are at it, ask them also if I have in any way asked or encouraged them to do so.
This is a false issue that serves no one other than some politicians who hope to land in the media by harping on it, as one of your own in the Foreign Correspondents’ Association once observed: “Politicians give the game away when they talk of ‘issues,’ not ‘problems,’ Problems are solved; issues are merely what politicians use to divide the citizenry and advance themselves.”
Leaving the world of political issues aside, therefore, I want to focus here on some problems and tasks in the real world that require the undivided attention of our leaders and our people today.
The situation in Mindanao
First, I believe I owe you a briefing on the situation in Mindanao—forty-five days to the time when our Government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) officially signed the final peace agreement ending 27 years of secessionist conflict in the Philippine South.
I can report to you today that the peace is holding. The arrangements called for by the agreement are under way, and we are conciliating with the other groups that did not sign the agreement.
Several unconnected violent incidents have occurred since the agreement was sealed. Some have to do with clashes between non-MNLF rebel bands and the military over the old problem of the Mal-Mar Dam project in Central Mindanao. Others involve small-scale explosions in Zamboanga City by groups protesting the signing of the agreement. None of these have dented, much less shattered, the peace in Mindanao. On the whole, the full cessation of hostilities between the MNLF and the Government is now fact. And beyond that peace, we have begun to build the structures of an enduring peace, and for the full development of the region.
Clock of change running
On September 9 this year, Professor Nur Misuari was elected Governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, running unopposed as the common candidate of both the Administration party and Muslim communities. He has taken his oath of office and he is now fully functioning as Governor of the Autonomous Region.
On October 2, following consultations with members of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council, I signed Executive Order 317 which formally creates the Southern Philippines Zone of Peace and Development the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development, and the consultative assembly.
Preparations for the organization of the council and the assembly—along with the appointment of their members—are now being laid.
I am confident that peace and development will stay on track. The vast majority of our people support it. No last-minute tactics can turn back the clock of change.
The establishment of the council—as the first of the two-phase process envisioned by the peace agreement—will provide the vital transition mechanism during the next three years. By 1999, with a truly amended Organic Law for Mindanao’s Autonomy, I am confident that all our compatriots in the affected areas will be able to decide for themselves which of their provinces and cities will finally compose the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
From APEC theory into APEC action
With respect to those rebel groups that consider themselves outside the peace agreement of September 2, I appointed on October 1 a negotiating panel—headed by retired General Fortunato U. Abat as chairman—for the peace talks with the Southern Philippines Autonomous Groups (SPAG). General Abat replaces retired General and former Ambassador Manuel Yan, who retains his post as Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, as chairman of the Govemment-SPAG. Ambassador Abat will take charge of the Government’s future peace negotiations with other armed groups in Mindanao such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
On this, I am optimistic that by the time I leave office in 1998, all the conflicts in the South will have been fully resolved by peaceful means—and all groups there will have become part of one concerted effort to develop the South on a sustainable basis.
I turn next to the APEC meeting of economic leaders, which the Philippines will host next month.
All preparations for this important meeting are proceeding on schedule. Preparatory meetings continue to be held in Manila, Cebu and Davao. Systems and venues being readied have either been completed or are near completion.
And all 18 member-economies of APEC have signified their intent to attend—represented by their heads of government or representatives.
Though the honor of being host is a great one, for which we are grateful, we do not see this event as an occasion to strut before the world. We have, however, campaigned intensively among our own people for everyone to appreciate the event and to lend a hand. This fourth summit of leaders represents a crucial moment for APEC—when its agenda for action will be transformed into a comprehensive action plan for implementation. This will shape what the member-economies will do severally and together—in bringing about the so-called Pacific century.
A model of development cooperation
As chairman of APEC ’96, I have advocated a new model of development cooperation that, by the leaders’ consensus I hope will be reflected in the 1996 Manila Action Plan for APEC (MAPA ’96) that will be agreed to in Subic on November 25.
At the third APEC Leaders’ Summit in Osaka one year ago, the APEC leaders agreed that member-economies would pursue economic and technical cooperation so as to attain sustainable growth and equitable development in the Asia-Pacific region, while reducing economic disparities among the APEC economies, improving economic and social well-being, and facilitating the growth of trade and investment in the region.
Yet economic and technical cooperation, if left merely to the ministrations of governments, cannot attain the level of community we all want in the Asia-Pacific. We need to involve as well the other sectors of society.
Thus in Manila and Subic, we hope to give expression in appropriate covenants to the growing consensus for a new model of economic and technical cooperation—one where our peoples will assume a major role in building the APEC community.
In this effort, the work of the APEC Business Advisory Council is vital in bringing the private sector into the mainstream of cooperative action, and so will the work, now beginning, to bring the youth, women, academe and other sectors under the aegis of the APEC program.
In four years APEC has steadily made progress from being, in the words of one minister, “four adjectives in search of a noun” into a more effective forum for regional cooperation. In Manila and Subic we may see its transformation into a real community of nations.
Philippine development
Such a development is of transcendent importance to all our economies—especially to a developing and modernizing economy like the Philippines, and this brings me to the third concern that I would like to touch on today—the state of the Philippine economy as we approach the close of another year.
When I last met with the Foreign Correspondents’ Association, the Philippines was gripped by some difficulties that to some raised worries about a reversion to old form. A rice shortage, brought on by natural calamities, had triggered a rise in inflation. And we were caught by public debate over the implementation of the expanded value-added tax.
Not just luck but the real thing
Today, a year later, all the leading economic indicators point to strong and continued growth. I shall not abuse the hospitality of this forum by reciting to you what you no doubt have already reported. It will suffice to say here that:
First, GNP and GDP are up to their highest levels in years and we should comfortably hit 6.5 to 7.0 percent GNP growth by year-end;
Second, inflation fell to 4.4 percent in September;
Third, the Philippine peso has held steady for three years running within a narrow band;
Fourth, interest rates are down to 11.5 percent as of September from a high of 12.9 percent in March;
Fifth, Philippine exports grew by 19.6 percent in the first semester. At a time when export growth is on a decline in other Asian countries; and,
Sixth, the unemployment rate has fallen to 7.7 percent this year—the lowest in years.
The main question that is being asked about our current economic growth is whether it is sustainable—whether this is just a spurt of good luck that may soon be followed by a bust, as was the case with our fleeting moments of growth in past decades.
I submit that you are looking at the real thing this time, because growth is not only being sustained, it is speeding up. And it is being driven by sound fiscal management, by macroeconomic reforms in the economy. By energetic involvement of the private sector, and by investments even in the countryside. In addition, we are making headway in our Social Reform Agenda, which addresses poverty, health, environmental protection and education—all of which immeasurably strengthen the base for development all over the country.
I would be the last to claim that this is just the doing of my Administration. Without the cooperation and support of both houses of Congress, we would not have today the 137 new structural laws in the last four years that collectively underpin our economic turnaround. And without the energetic participation of the private sector and international investors, the engine of growth would sputter and peter out.
Between fear and hope
Looking at the Philippine situation in the strategic sense, we still have a long way to go. As you perhaps have noted, even my economic ministers have shown much restraint in describing our country as a “young bull” or “a cub” in a region of tigers.
There are various reforms still in the legislative pipeline. Major projects have still to come onstream to close the huge infrastructure gap. And who can even forget the crime and peace problems—and the poverty challenge—we still must hurdle?
I submit that we can master the challenges and the problems if we—the Administration, Congress and the people together—concentrate on solving problems, not on exploiting issues.
I see no difficulty in working with the new Senate leadership if we can together approach the problems of national life in a spirit of exchange and cooperation instead of a spirit of enmity and confrontation. For I see no sense in fighting today the electoral battles of tomorrow.
In our quest for modernization and development, we have constantly been confronted by a choice between our fears and our hopes—between pessimism about our national capacities as a nation and optimism about what we can really do to win the future.
Choosing peace over war
Thus we could only make vital and necessary social and economic reform against the determined opposition of those who would preserve the status quo.
Thus against those who prefer dependence on Manila, we will continue to release the energies of our regions and provinces by devolving power and resources to the countryside.
And thus, against the wishes of those who prefer the conflict to continue, we will reinforce the peace in Mindanao and create new hope for its future.
I believe we have made the right decision in choosing hope over fear, reform over the status quo, and peace over war. We are what we are today—a nation back on the road to growth—because of these choices we have made.