Speech
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
On the enactment of amendments to the Official Development Assistance Law and eight other reform laws

[Delivered at the Ceremonial Hall, Malacañang, Manila, February 26, 1998]

Two productive
Congresses

TODAY’S CEREMONY is a vital guidepost of whether or not we, this country’s leaders, have lived up to the promises we made to improve our people’s lives and enhance our reacquired freedom. This is as much a day to review what we have achieved over six years as it is a day to rejoice over the nine bills that will be signed into law.

The first of these new laws is R.A. 8555, which amends certain sections of R.A. 8182 covering the use of Official Development Assistance (ODA). The amendment will enable us to make the best use of concessional ODA loans by facilitating the processing by donor agencies of regular ODA loans and special quick-disbursing emergency loans that the country may avail itself of in times of regional financial difficulties.

R.A. 8555 repeals Section 4 of R.A. 8182, thus maintaining the constitutional power of Congress to appropriate peso proceeds of foreign loans while respecting the President’s constitutional power to contract foreign loans with the concurrence of the Monetary Board.

As a matter of urgency, this law also facilitates the processing within this year of US$2 billion worth of ODA financing for vital projects in power, transportation, water supply irrigation, education and health.

R.A. 8556 amends the old Financing Company Act (R.A. 5980) be redefining the character, rights and powers of financing companies, their regulation and minimum capitalization requirements. Recognizing the role of financing and leasing companies in giving people alternative forms of credit, R.A. 8556 protects borrowers from unscrupulous, inadequately capitalized operators, broadens and deepens our financial markets, and expands the powers of financing/leasing companies to strengthen their liquidity and their capability to service a more diverse range of clients.

Strengthening our judicial system

R.A. 8557 strengthens our judicial system by ensuring that members of the judiciary are adequately prepared for their tasks. It creates the Philippine Judicial Academy, which will formulate and implement a comprehensive program of judicial education for justices, judges, other court personnel and lawyers. The academy shall be staffed by a corps of professorial lecturers whose final screening will be done by the Supreme Court.

R.A. 8558 reduces the retirement age of underground mine workers from the present age of 60 as prescribed by the Labor Code to 50, for humanitarian reasons and in consideration of the peculiarities of underground mining. Retirement benefits for mine workers are also provided for in this law.

R.A. 8559 and 8560 regulate the practice of agricultural engineering and geodetic engineering, respectively. Stricter regulations for these professions are major steps in raising the quality of our licensed agricultural engineers and geodetic engineers to world standards.

Raising the quality of our engineers

Before graduates of agricultural engineering may be licensed, they are now required to pass the examinations to be conducted by the newly created Board of Agricultural Engineering. In the case of geodetic engineers, the old practice—of allowing surveying graduates and students who have completed the fourth year of civil engineering to take the geodetic board exams—will no longer be allowed. Only graduates of a Bachelor of Science degree in Geodetic Engineering will henceforth be qualified to take the geodetic board exams.

We are happy to announce here the upgrading of the Bataan Provincial Hospital, which, under R.A. 8561, is authorized to increase its bed capacity to 350 beds. Finally, we add two more staff colleges in our provinces to give our college students better options for quality tertiary education. R.A. 8562 creates the Bataan Polytechnic State College out of the Bataan Community Colleges in Balanga, Bataan. R.A. 8563 converts the Apayao Institute of Science and Technology and its extension high school into the Apayao State College in Conner, Apayao.

As we recap what the executive and legislative branches have done together—sometimes in critical collaboration but more often in synergistic partnership—we look to the quantity and quality of the laws that have been passed over the last five and a half years.

When we adopted the twin goals of people empowerment and global competitiveness as this Administration’s strategies for sustainable growth and development, both the executive and legislative branches agreed that six critical aspects of national life must be strengthened through a set of strategic reforms in six major areas:

1) Our economy which needs clear-cut policies to enable this country to compete in the world.

2) Our electoral system, which has long tolerated a tradition of guns, goons and gold.

3) Law enforcement to fight criminality, corruption and terrorism, as well as the laxity of the justice system.

4) Preventing the perpetuation of poverty.

5) Promoting Filipino pride and self-confidence.

6) The effectivity and efficiency of governance, including the integrity of the bureaucracy.

Proud performance of two Congresses

Has Congress been able to deal with these specific concerns? We can say with pride that the performance of the Ninth and Tenth Congresses exceeded our expectations.

A total of 228 laws of national application—including those approved today—have been enacted since July 1, 1992. I have signed 79 laws for economic reform; 85 laws for social reform and 64 laws for political and judicial reform.

With much pride, I can say that the Ninth and Tenth Congresses are so far the most productive of all Philippine Congresses in the reach and depth of the laws they have passed. I believe our lawmakers over these six years can confidently say they have improved the lives of all our people.

The social benefits and economic results of all these reform laws would be difficult to quantify. But the indicators are there—countryside development resulting from the economic growth we had experienced over the past five years, as registered in increased individual incomes, our gross national product, our gross domestic product, export earnings and investment inflows. Our economy has remained the least affected by the financial turmoil in East Asia.

Ensuring the continuity of democracy

But who can measure the relief of the citizens whose anxieties were quelled by the Energy Crisis Act? Who can calculate the benefits from the various education and health reform laws? Who can quantify the hopes of our newly empowered cultural communities, beneficiaries of the Indigenous People Rights Act?

Who can count the number of lives spared by the cessation of hostilities brought about by the repeal of the Antisubversion Law? Who can argue against the new found aspirations of the disadvantaged sectors benefiting from the Poverty Alleviation Act, the Agricultural Modernization Law, the Fisheries Code, or the amendments to the Magna Carta for Small Enterprises and the Agrarian Reform Law?

We have said our policies should enhance our democratic way of life, should produce more choices which every Filipino will exercise in pursuit of a better, more dignified, more prosperous life.

The continuity of democracy, indeed, has been ensured. Our freedom is secured when we reform our economy to strengthen our comparative advantage in a highly competitive global order. Liberty is sustained when we increase the common man’s opportunity to improve his life economically and socially, and assure him of the judicious and sustainable use of the nation’s resources. Freedom is strengthened when we ensure lasting peace, when people feel safe anywhere in the country.

Not an empty boast

We seek in our laws the enhancement of liberty through an improved quality of life. I am proud to say that all our 228 reform laws of national significance respond to this requirement.

In one of the bill-signing ceremonies in 1995, I vowed to our people that the best was yet to come—referring to the laws that Congress still had to draft in support of our economic, social, political and judicial reforms. I repeated this commitment in my State of the Nation address of that year as “the best is soon to come,” and despite the contrary views of my usual critics, many people agreed with me.

Looking back now and reviewing the tremendous output of the Ninth and the Tenth Congress, it was not an empty boast. In terms of the legislative means we needed to jump-start ourselves from being “Asia’s sick man” to becoming “Asia’s most improved player,” the best has come after less than six years.

I must add, however, that I am already counting on Congress to complete work on other vital laws before our terms end. These include the amendment to the ARMM Organic Act, the Antiracketeering Act, amendments to the Bases Conversion Development Authority Act and the Water Resources Development Act. In other words, more of the best is still coming.

These additional laws are urgently needed, not because their nonpassage is life-threatening, but because they are life-sustaining.

We had vowed to our people that we will give them the best—the best of our efforts, our energies and our mental abilities in crafting the most urgent, the most beneficial and the most providential of the policies and laws needed to equitably give our people a better economic, social and political environment with which they can improve their lives.

That pledge we have redeemed. The number and breadth of our laws manifest the political will of the executive and legislative branches. I can never adequately express my thanks to the men and women whose vision made this the most prolific Congress ever.