INTRODUCTION
Once again, we gather here — to mark the moment when we took up the mantle of leadership of our country — and to report on the progress of our labors.

To most of us, today’s gathering has transcendent meaning — for we stand at the midpoint of my presidential term which also marks the beginning of the three-year term of 204 members of the House of Representatives and more than 17,000 local government executives, and the six-year term of 12 Senators.

Three years ago, at my inauguration, i said to our people: “this nation will endure, this nation will prevail, and this nation will prosper again — if we hold together.”

Some regarded my words as just rhetoric for a ceremonial occasion. Many were skeptical that we could make a difference in the life of our people and our country.

But now, three years later, we all know — and the whole world knows — that we have made a difference. And more than a difference, we have brought this country to the threshold of modernization and progress.
IT IS US – IT IS NOW
As we enter the second half of my term, the Philippines has never been in a better position to modernize than it is now.

In the Holy Scriptures, it is written: “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

I believe this is a time when the national purpose and our people’s welfare — so long denied and frustrated over the past 97 years — can finally be fulfilled.

The time has finally come for us to redeem the dreams and struggles that have gone into the making of our nation.

Today, international observers are wondering where the next Asian miracle will happen and when.

Perhaps, it is time we Filipinos freed them from all the suspense. To paraphrase the message of the champion Houston Rockets, let us tell them and let us tell our people:

“It is us. It is now.”

Kaya natin ito!
UNITY AND POLITICAL STABILITY
For this national turnaround, I have received a few notices — including a flattering cover story by TIME magazine and write-ups by other international and Philippine publications.

I may be flattered by all the attention — yet when I look back, I know to whom the credit belongs. The credit belongs to our people!

I say our story has begun to change — because of the new political unity and social cohesion we have found. In each endeavor, in every struggle, we turned the tide in our favor because we sought and were favored by our people’s support.

The people put their trust in us. And we repaid that trust by striving to be an administration of builders — not fixers.

We took the path of reform and innovation, instead of applying again the same old answers to the same old problems.

We reinforced our working democracy that enabled us to effect major reforms and accelerate economic growth.

This system has now weathered two crucial electoral tests — the 1994 barangay elections and the 1995 national and local elections. In both of those contests, we proved we had matured well enough as an electorate to surmount our partisan differences and vote with a view to our common future, rather than the divided past.
OUR PEACE EFFORT AND THE BATTLE AGAINST CRIME
This was made possible because we sought to make peace — and to keep it — whenever and wherever we could.

We have pursued a peace process that has been widely regarded as a model for other developing countries with internal armed conflict. Moving away from the battlefield to the negotiating table has enabled all sides to appreciate each other more fully as brother Filipinos, while giving an opportunity for development to catch up.

At the same time, we took decisive action in addressing the root causes of insurgency and crime. We are moving steadily in the field of electoral reform, in the campaign against private armed groups, in working with the judiciary on judicial reforms and in implementing our social reform agenda.

We improved our capability to protect our people, both from external aggression and domestic criminality. Despite recent sensational crimes, the record shows the crime rate has steadily been brought down, from a monthly average of 13.7 crimes per 100,000 persons in 1992 to 11.9 in 1994. We are clearly doing not only something, but many things, right — not the least of which have been our unrelenting war against crime and corruption and instituting community participation in crime prevention and detection.

We restored our people’s confidence in the law by demonstrating our resolve in cases involving prominent personalities such as, among others, ex-mayor Antonio Sanchez who is now behind bars.

Let me reiterate that pledge: I will do all to ensure that the rule of law will prevail over guns, goons, gold and influence in fighting crime.
THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF DEVELOPMENT
We have reinforced the foundations of our political stability and social cohesion with the physical platforms for our economic take-off.

We solved the power crisis in 18 months and provided adequately for future needs — despite widespread pessimism at the time. This feat was subsequently hailed as one of the few successful exercises in recent years in the privatization of power generation throughout the developing world.

Those among us who still doubt our capability to end the water crisis should reflect on those facts — and prove them wrong, or hold their peace and help us out for a change, even if only to conserve water.

We worked on other strategic infrastructure projects to catalyze development and link our many new growth centers through the flagship system.

We continue to upgrade our major road networks to meet international standards. We expect the doubling of road density to happen by the year 2000 and have therefore contracted, under b-o-t arrangements, for mass transit to serve Metro Manila. To make rail travel faster to Calabarzon and Bicol, we rehabilitated the Philippine National Railways (PNR) line from Lucena to Naga which, in twelve months, will extend to Legaspi City. We have also packaged the first phase of the Mindanao railway system between Cagayan de Oro and Iligan.

Recognizing the importance of our growing passenger and commercial maritime traffic, we have rehabilitated Manila’s South and North Harbors, started the expansion of the Batangas Port and inaugurated our most modern fishing port in Davao City.

Expanding our international gateways, we opened the Subic International Airport as a 24-hour airport with state-of-the-art navigational equipment. We are also upgrading the Davao International Airport into a major aviation hub in Southeast Asia. All in all, 32 airports nationwide will benefit from similar rehabilitation programs. The modernization of NAIA and Clark starts today.

As those of you with new telephones, pagers and connections to the internet can attest to, the liberalization of our telecommunications sector has been one of our most exciting and beneficial moves, creating a competitive telecommunications sector in Asia-Pacific.

In a word, we have been building roads, bridges and communication lines to the 21st century.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY AND GROWTH
We will enter that century as one of Asia’s most dynamic economies. The proof is evident even today, with the significant upsurge in our performance and optimism.

Over the past three years, our structural reforms have led to higher family incomes, more jobs in industry and stable prices.

In 1994, our GNP grew in real terms by 5.1% — the highest in five years and well above our 4.5% growth target for that year. The economy continued to grow in the first quarter of 1995 by 5.2%, bringing us closer to realizing our goal this year which is to: “Exceed 6.5 in ’95!”.

Unlike previous growth spurts which were prompted by consumer spending — and therefore short-lived — our present economic growth is driven by structural fundamentals, exports and direct investments. The new strength of our economy proved itself as it weathered the energy problem, domestic supply problems caused by calamities, and external shocks like the recent Mexican crisis.

We established a more effective monetary environment, deregulated the financial sector, and instituted banking reforms to ensure easier access to cheaper funds for traders, investors, and small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs).

We opened up critical segments of the economy — foreign exchange, banking and finance, foreign and domestic investments, telecommunications, insurance, inter-island shipping and transportation, and encouraged our industries to become more competitive in the world market.

We improved tenurial relations in agriculture and increased the incomes of our farmers thru our focus on productivity in several hundred agrarian reform communities (ARCs). We dismantled monopolies and cartels, and opened opportunities for entrepreneurial development.

To maintain a manageable fiscal situation, we controlled budgetary behavior through a combination of measures for increased revenue generation and more prudent public expenditures.

For the first time in almost 20 years, we generated a surplus of p18.1 billion in 1994 and p14.6 billion as of the first quarter of 1995. This surplus was made possible by the improved performance of our revenue-collection agencies, the extended privatization program, and the significant decline in our debt-service burden.

More significantly, the 1993 consolidated public sector deficit (CPSD) of p32.9 billion was dramatically reduced to a record low of p9.0 billion in 1994 and to p2.2 billion for the first quarter of 1995. During the first quarter of 1995, we generated a consolidated public sector surplus of p0.6 billion.

We sustained robust growth in industry, supported by a strong influx of domestic investments. We developed new areas in the countryside, particularly in our poorest 19 provinces, and continued to broaden our economic base.

Industry posted an average growth rate of 3.9% from 1992 to 1994. For the first five months of 1995, industry grew by 7.2%. Prices and supplies of basic commodities remained stable.

And we raised the technological capability of the production sector, as well as prioritized research and development to support the demands of our industries.

Our tourism was one of the fastest developing sectors during the past three years with an annual average growth in foreign arrivals of 18%.
OUR SOCIAL AGENDA
Despite these gains in material terms, they would mean little to our people if their benefits were not shared more equitably, and if our masses were left outside the circle of development.

As I have said many times before, growth cannot be equated with greed. Development must promote democracy, in both principle and substance. Thus, one year ago we launched the Social Reform Agenda (SRA) consisting of an integrated package of legislative measures, executive programs, and funding arrangements.

The program to remove Smokey Mountain and convert it into a cleaner and more productive community continues and is on track.

Our SRA seeks to address the basic inequities in our society through a systematic, unified and coordinated social reform package with financial support and people’s participation. In this, our basic strategy has been to empower our people into taking charge of their own lives, and to provide them with more substantial options for the future.

We reaffirmed our long-standing commitment to education. We accessed basic education to more Filipinos by bringing school buildings and teachers to the remotest rural barangays, and connected students and instructors to the knowledge highway by hi-tech communications. There are now cable tv services in the capital towns of all provinces in the cordillera region and in Mindanao.

We upgraded our school curricula especially in science and technology. This is part of our broad effort to ensure that our manpower skills and expertise, ranging from manual workers to professional managers, are among the best in Asia.

With the support of the private sector and of local government units (LGUs), we expanded access to affordable housing through increased funding and construction support.

We created more and better-paying jobs, particularly in the provinces, by way of our public employment service offices (PESOs), job fairs, and our “Kabuhayan 2000!!!” program.

Through the new Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), we are developing needed people’s skills to move us from an agri-based and service-oriented economy to an industrializing country status. We kept the peace in industry by looking after our workers’ welfare, thereby encouraging industrial growth.

Most significantly, we addressed the special needs of our millions of overseas workers, who contribute some $3 billion to our economy every year. Congress responded to their welfare problems by enacting the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995, which protects their rights and benefits and also of their families.

And this, I assure you, will be a continuing imperative. I have impressed upon all our overseas labor and diplomatic officials that their priority responsibility is to care for ordinary Filipinos, wherever and whoever they may be. We will continue to create new jobs and employment opportunities here at home and enhance the environment that will enable most of our overseas workers to rejoin their families, and to contribute more directly to the development of their communities.

Those opportunities include new livelihood projects. So far, about 785,000 people have benefited from 27,600 livelihood projects involving a total of p6.5 billion.

Our people’s health remains a key concern. We have ensured equity, quality and access to health care for all, and prioritized preventive and promotive health care, especially for the young. Among many salutary results, the Filipino’s average life expectancy rose from 65.46 years in 1992 to 65.98 in 1994.

And that benchmark will rise even further as we promote physical fitness and sports development throughout the country. This we have done through a unified national sports promotion and development program based on a grass-roots approach.

The 21st century Filipino will be a more healthy and productive citizen — able and proud to take his rightful place in the highly competitive world of tomorrow.

And we will ensure that our children are blessed with a natural environment adequate to their material and spiritual needs.

In seeking growth, we have adhered to the principle of sustainable development, by which we ensure that the Filipinos of the future are benefitted and protected by the Filipinos of today.

Thus, we have implemented and strengthened our environmental protection laws, rehabilitated our degraded ecosystems, and regulated the commercial use of our forests.

By actualizing the Philippine Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD), we earned the distinction of being the first country to institute a national mechanism to respond to global initiatives for sustainable development.

We are also the first country to affirm the principles embodied in the people’s earth charter of the United Nations based on the principles of the stewardship of nature, enhancement of the earth’s carrying capacity, upholding basic rights, and social, gender and generational equity.
DIPLOMACY FOR POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
If the outside world has begun to appreciate and to support our efforts, it is because we have employed diplomacy in the service of our socio-economic and political development.

Over the past three years, we sounded the message that the Philippines is back in business at the gateway of Asia and the Pacific. That message has been heard, and our signals are being returned.

This we can see in the rapidly rising volume of foreign investments, export earnings and capital flows. Once again, the Philippines is recognized as a strategic investment area in Asia-Pacific and an attractive place for people to visit, be they balikbayans, foreign tourists, trade missions, or heads of state.

We have emerged as a more active player in international affairs through our unwavering dedication to global interdependence and to intensified economic, political and cultural relations with our bilateral and multilateral partners.

The Philippines reaffirmed its solidarity with its ASEAN neighbors by consistently supporting economic, political, social and cultural activities aimed at strengthening regional ties. We remained committed to the implementation of the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA).

We participated actively in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summits first held in Seattle, USA in 1993, then in Bogor, Indonesia in 1994. At these meetings, we voiced our support for the expansion of regional trade and investment, and for the protection of human resources.

As an off-shoot of the 1994 APEC Summit, the Philippines has been chosen to provide the APEC Technology Transfer Center for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which we started to develop early this year, and to host the APEC International Conference on Debt-for-Nature Swap in 1995. The Philippines has been given the honor to host the fourth leaders’ summit for APEC’s 18 member-economies in November 1996.

We launched the East ASEAN Growth Area (EAGA) in 1994 to further strengthen economic linkages among the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and all others who see attractive opportunities for investment in Mindanao.

We signed the final act of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-Uruguay Round (GATT-UR) in 1994 in Marrakesh, Morocco. After the agreement’s ratification by the Philippine Senate, we became a founding member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in January 1995.

This year, in an unprecedented leap into the world stage, the Philippines was elected to chair both the Group of 77 (G-77) consisting of 130 developing countries and the governing body of the International Labor Organization (ILO).

To strengthen our national security posture — particularly against international terrorism — we forged joint defense cooperation agreements with other countries, upgraded our airport security system, and contributed to the arrest and prosecution of notorious terrorists wanted around the world.

With great success, we employed peaceful approaches in our territorial disputes with our neighbors, while at the same time asserting our territorial sovereignty.

We succeeded in forging closer ties with our partners in Southeast Asia, Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Americas and the Middle East.

With strengthened friendships have come new opportunities for mutual benefit. We have availed of every opportunity to enhance our position to compete successfully in the global economy of the future.
THE NATION WE CAN BECOME
As we move into the threshold of the 21st century, ours is the unprecedented opportunity to achieve the highest levels of progressive growth our country has ever known — and for the longest period in our history.

The critical question is not whether we will grow, but how fast we will grow and whether we can sustain it throughout this decade and well into the new century.

Our country has finally begun to see stability and progress because the national leadership has finally supplied the will to cut the shackles that had held us in sick bay, thereby releasing the energies and talents of our people for productive enterprise.

To sustain growth at an accelerated rate, we need to match political will with efficiency and effectiveness in both the public and private sectors of our country.

In government, we must continue the process of reform, so as to respond to the challenges of growth.

We will continue to build into government the ethic of self-improvement and bench marking, which the corporate world has built into its many successful organizations.

In the private sector, we must press on with the drive for global competitiveness.

The era of protectionism and oligarchy is over. The era of liberalization has begun — and it will stay for a long, long time.

This is now the time when we must back up with performance all that we claim about the vision of Filipino entrepreneurs, the competence of Filipino managers, and the skills of Filipino workers.

Throughout our history, we have often searched for excuses to explain away the failures and shortcomings of our national community.

When we have not been blaming others for our underdevelopment, we have been looking for explanations in the inconsistencies of leadership or the weaknesses of the national character.

As we looked for lofty explanations for our failures, our neighbors were patiently toiling to make their farms and factories more productive and competitive.

If our national fortunes have changed over these past three years, it is not because we have finally found some secret key or a quick fix to progress. It is simply because we have, at last, applied ourselves to performing, instead of talking; to accepting our responsibility, instead of passing it on to others.

Our leaders — in government, in business and in all the other institutions of society — are accomplishing more because they have finally realized that the quality of leadership is not measured by position or power but by action and results. For this I thank the leadership of the Senate, the House of Representatives and local government, and equally commend our peoples’ organizations (POs), cooperatives, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and our business leaders.

Overall, our people are now contributing more because they are being empowered to do more.
CONCLUSION
In sum, we have attained this stage of unparalleled opportunity for our country because we have made the struggle for development the struggle of all — of ordinary citizens and leaders, of rural and urban workers, of basic sectors and the well-to-do, of employers and employees.

We are waging this campaign for a better future not just in our large metropolitan centers, but in the countryside where most of our people reside.

We have started to win many of the battles — but the future is not yet won. We must win the future for good by the time of our centennial of independence in 1998!!

If we are to meet the goals we have set for ourselves — of providing more adequately for our people’s welfare and of reaching the threshold of newly-industrializing country (NIC) status by the year 2000 — it will be by exactly the same way — by making more demands on ourselves, by investing more of ourselves in the effort, and by producing results that make a difference.

In this time of great opportunity, join me in embracing the challenge. Together let us answer the summons and show the world the nation we can become — a democratic, just, peaceful and progressive Philippines.

I say to all of you — stay with me — stay with us — stay together — the best is yet to come!!!

Mabuhay ang Philippines 2000!!!

Mabuhay tayong lahat!!

Maraming salamat sa inyong lahat.