Toast
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
At a state luncheon for President William (Bill) J. Clinton

[Delivered in Malacañang, Manila November 13, 1994]

A new partnership
in a changing world

MR. PRESIDENT, only three week ago, we—Filipinos and Americans—together with peoples from many nations, observed the fiftieth anniversary of the return to the Philippines of American and Allied forces during World War II.

The Leyte Landing of October 20, 1944, defines for all time the singular character of the friendship between our two peoples.

For us Filipinos, Leyte was an American promise honorably redeemed and the beginning of our country’s emergence to freedom.

A world greatly changed

Mr. President, the world has changed greatly since then. The nature of relationships among nations has changed—in the Asia-Pacific region and in the world. The character of Philippine-American relations, too, has changed.

In the light of these changes, your visit to our country is invested with a historic timeliness. It is itself a statement of America’s purposes and interests in the Asia-Pacific. It declares America’s intentions to remain engaged in this region. It renews America’s commitment to the peace, stability and progress of our part of the world.

Mr. President, we in the Philippines—and I venture to say, the rest of the Asia-Pacific peoples—take heart from the role the United States has assumed in building a new structure of regional peace and security—bilaterally and through various networks such as the ASEAN Regional Forum.

We are no less gratified by the growing evidence, in recent times, of America’s continuing leadership in the task of resolving many of the conflicts that have threatened the peace of regions and the welfare of peoples.

American statesmanship in the world

American action, in concert with its friends, has given the people of Haiti the chance to build in peace the kind of democratic system they have chosen for themselves. The Philippines is proud to be part of this effort.

In the Middle East, American encouragement and support have helped neighbors—who have been in conflict for so long—to break through to peace, coexistence and cooperation.

In Northeast Asia, American diplomacy—with the enlightened collaboration of Koreans on either side of the 38th parallel, and the great powers with legitimate interests there—has tremendously eased the tensions in the Korean Peninsula.

Mr. President, these historic interventions the world owes to your statesmanship, no less than to the professionalism of American diplomacy. Just as much do we applaud your economic policies, which have returned the American economy to the ways of growth.

These achievements have apparently not yet received the recognition they deserve in your country. But that is how it has always been for leaders with vision: the Evangelist Luke (4:24) tells us “no prophet is accepted in his home town.”

But in time, that recognition must come—because the historic initiatives you have achieved transcend the ups and downs of electoral politics.

Certainly, America’s current economic recovery will be welcome news to the leaders’ summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Indonesia. Coming as it does with your Government’s unequivocal commitment to a global regime of freer trade and unhindered competition, America’s return to growth cannot but spur the APEC process, and lift up the global economy.

A Philippines at peace

We in the Philippines, Mr. President, can claim that we have put our house in order, and that we can now better pull our weight in regional cooperation—and account for ourselves in the world.

You come to a Philippines at peace with itself and with its neighbors. You come to a country back on the road to growth, by way of our opening our economy to free-market competition and to free-market forces, and gaining the consensus of its multipartisan leadership in support of our national development goals.

You come to a nation renewed—to achieve a greater measure of social equality and cohesion for all its people under the reign of freedom and people empowerment.

Building a new relationship

I am confident your visit, Mr. President, will give further impetus to our building of a truly sovereign relationship—a process we began with our discussions in Washington a year ago.

Such a new partnership is founded primarily on economic cooperation and mutual benefit. Our shared commitment to the peace, stability and security of this region and our common security interests remain an important part of that foundation.

This is a commitment expressed not only in our Mutual Defense Treaty and the activities that flow from it, but also in our common involvement in the multilateral search for arrangements and processes to strengthen regional stability and security.

We are building this new relationship on the strength of the growing trade between us, our intensive transactions in investments and finance, and our common participation in APEC and the forums and tasks related to it.

Not the least, our new relationship is being reinforced by the significant American community in the Philippines and the large and growing Filipino community in the United States, which is now beginning to develop important political dimensions.

Above all, this new relationship—no less than the old—is rooted in the faith we share in the inherent value and efficacy of democracy and in our shared belief in the sanctity of the rule of law.

Ideals of democracy in the world

In this sense, your all-too-brief visit to Southeast Asia and to our country, Mr. President, acquires an added quality.

Thanks in large measure to the steadfastness of the United States, the structures of arbitrary rule are crumbling, and the ideals of democracy and human rights—of freedom and the rule of law—are beginning to light up the world.

The United States has a special responsibility for affirming, fortifying and propagating these ideals—just as America’s strength gives it a special role of constructive leadership in the world. For, uniquely among nations, America was founded on these very principles of responsible and representative government, of inalienable rights and the majesty of the law.

The United States is thus called on to affirm, with clarity and firmness, its devotion to democracy and the Bill of Rights—not through confrontation, but by deed and example.

In the end, it is on these shared values that the unique affinity between our two peoples is based, and it is from them that the new relationship we are building must proceed.