Speech
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
On the enactment of the regulation for merchant marine officers’ profession in the Philippines and five other reform bills

[Delivered at the Ceremonial Hall, Malacañang, February 24, 1998]

Honoring our heroes

OVER THE LAST FEW DAYS, the Tenth Congress has given the Filipino people a number of very important laws that will affect the lives of millions now and in the future.

Today, two nationally significant bills and four other bills that carry out national policy are signed into law to strengthen our sense of history and spirit of national unity, boost the quality of our human resources and improve public health.

Empowering our seafarers

R.A. 8544 amends Presidential Decree 97, or the Philippine Merchant Marine Officers’ Law, to improve the preparation of Filipino merchant marine officers for overseas employment in accord with the Standards of Training Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCWS) to which our country is a signatory. The STCWS drawn up in 1978 and amended in 1995 is the international convention that sets the minimum standards for safety in sea transport.

The significance of this timely amendment to our obsolete Merchant Marine Officers’ Law is underlined by the fact that member-countries of the International Marine Organization (IMO) have only until August 1998 to comply with the requirements of the convention.

Had we not complied with STCWS ’95, we would have jeopardized the jobs of more than 200,000 overseas Filipino seafarers who man about one-fourth of the world’s merchant fleet. They would have been subjected to closer scrutiny by port authorities of countries that are members of the IMO.

But beyond losing the annual income of US$1.9 billion, or a staggering P76 billion—which is what our overseas sailors infuse into our economy—we would also have lost the golden opportunity to continue proving the sterling abilities of Filipino maritime officers and workers, who are much in demand around the world.

Manning capital of the world

Even as it updates the training and other requirements for full-fledged merchant marine officers, R.A. 8544 upholds our country’s distinction as the manning capital of the world. Making our standards accord with STCWS ’95 enables our country to make it to the IMO “white list,” thereby opening the world’s growing maritime labor markets to our more than 200,000 seafarers in interisland waters, while assuring security of employment for the other 200,000 Filipino merchant mariners who sail the seven seas.

We therefore welcome R.A. 8544 with much gladness. Its passage was the fruit of the dedicated lobbying of the multisectoral task force on maritime development created in July 1997 by Executive Order 428. Besides making our merchant marine officers comparable with the best of the world, this law is ample proof that a fruitful and hard-working partnership between the private sector and Government always brings fast results.

Progress through education

Another law that will affect the lives of millions of Filipinos of this and future generations is R.A. 8545, which amends the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE) Act, or R.A. 6728.

Studies have indicated that despite the provisions in the GASTPE Law subsidizing the tuition and other fees of deserving students enrolled in private schools, the intentions of that law could not be fully realized, because of several constraints.

The most glaring of these constraints was the prescribed maximum income of parents whose children were allowed to avail themselves of the tuition supplement. The stipulated parents’ income, at a maximum of P36,000, no longer applies in these times of adjusted rates. Thus, only very few students could qualify for educational support under R.A. 6728.

Moreover, some private schools were unwilling to accept vouchers as part of tuition payments due to frequent delays in the remittances of these payments.

Another problem that was not dealt with under the GASTPE Law was the retention of well-prepared teachers in private schools. The adjustments granted to public-school teachers over the past years had made it difficult for private schools to compete with public schools in hiring well-trained teachers.

R.A. 8545 corrects these deficiencies and contains additional provisions to increase the quality and quantity of private-school-educated students. For one, it creates the Fund for Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education to be administered by the newly created State Assistance Council.

Upholding unity, dignity and pride

The Fund shall be used to provide tuition supplements for students whose parents earn not more than P72,000 annually; textbook assistance to high school students; education service contracting schemes engaging private schools in localities where there are no public high schools; educational loans for students; teacher-faculty salary subsidies, provided that the total monthly salary of the recipient shall not exceed P8,606; and assistance to college faculty development programs; and in-service training for high school faculty.

A special provision in this law gives priority to students and teachers in the identified 20 poorest provinces where our Social Reform Agenda must be made to operate with greater impact.

In keeping with our Constitution’s mandate for the State to provide incentives to deserving students in both public and private schools, and this Administration’s promise to speed up social reform especially through human resource development, we sign R. A. 8545 into law.

It is not only our human resources that we want to nurture. It is also our common goal to uphold Filipino unity, dignity and pride by commemorating the noble deeds and propagating the ideals of our heroes. To attain these goals, we hereby protect the sites of great events in our history, the mute witnesses to the sacrifices of our heroes in our struggle for nationhood.

One such site is Biak-na-Bato in San Miguel, Bulacan, where then-General Emilio Aguinaldo consolidated the Filipino forces and signed in August 1897 the pact which signaled the end of fighting in the first phase of the Revolution. Although it was not until a year later when Aguinaldo proclaimed our independence and became the first President of our Republic, the Pact of Biak-na-Bato will be forever remembered in our history as the first major instrument of peace in that protracted war for liberation.

Upgrading the quality of college education

Biak-na-Bato is now declared a historic shrine and tourist spot through R.A. 8546. Under this law, the Department of Tourism and the Local Government officials of Bulacan are required to maintain the shrine, and to preserve the memory of the deeds of Emilio Aguinaldo and the rest of our phalanx of heroes. By this means, we encourage visits to this historic site and promote the patriotic fervor that made our forebears overcome tremendous difficulties in order to create the Filipino nation.

We also advance our Social Reform Agenda at the provincial/regional level with the upgrading of the Ilocos Sur Polytechnic College into a State college under R.A. 8547; and the upgrading of the Bulacan National Agricultural School into the Bulacan National Agricultural College by virtue of R.A. 8548.

This upgrading should bring the quality of education in these colleges to nationally accepted levels, and will no doubt improve the educational preparedness of the people of Ilocos Sur and Bulacan. These major steps for education in the provinces move us further toward our national goal of global competitiveness.

A new brand of heroism

We also congratulate the people of Palawan for upgrading the Puerto Princesa Provincial Hospital into a 150-bed hospital to be called the Palawan Regional Hospital under R.A. 8549.

Today we again harvest a bumper crop of important legislative measures that improve Philippine competitiveness.

At the launching two days ago of several projects to commemorate the 12th anniversary of our People Power Revolution at EDSA, I called for a new brand of heroism, the kind to which ordinary Filipinos have the capability to respond. It is a heroism that does not demand one’s blood or one’s life, but only hard work and a steady commitment to our basic values of caring, sharing and daring that will benefit our country and our people.

The laws we sign today and all the other laws crafted by the Tenth Congress, whether applicable to the provincial, regional or national levels, are instruments of empowerment and opportunities for ordinary Filipinos to bring out the best in themselves. Such opportunities, when used well, will enable every Filipino to actualize the nobility within him or her by taking an active part in working for peace, safeguarding our freedom and sustaining our growth. I therefore call on every Filipino to avail himself or herself of the chances that our new laws offer, and to use these opportunities not merely to advance personal gain but to improve the commonweal.