Ladies and Gentlemen:
Today, we begin anew our joint efforts to build our nation's future.
During the past six years, our productive facilities have expanded in almost every field. This year has been no exception.
- Our external debt has decreased, and the national economy is undergoing rapid growth -- boosted by 10 uninterrupted months of slowed inflation rates.
- Food production is greater than ever before - with agriculture posting a 4.87 percent growth in production over the first nine months of this year alone.
- And, between April and July of this year, some 800 thousand Filipinos had found employment in the industry and service sectors.
Now that we are definitely in the process of recovery, it is our responsibility to perfect, to improve, and consolidate what we are doing to make our economic and social structure strong, just and equitable.
This government has pledged to rescue 5 to 7 million Filipinos from poverty between 2003 and 2010.
While it is reasonable to expect that poverty levels have since fallen, about 24 million Filipinos still lived below the poverty line as of the last official tally conducted three years ago.
- Around 29 percent of all Filipino families do not own the homes in which they live.
- Every fifth household throughout the country has no access to clean water.
- Around 4 million Filipino children and youth now work as child laborers.
- And, as a vast portion of our population approaches reproductive age, 29 out of every 1000 children who were born this year will probably not live beyond infancy.
You will remember that the first few years of this administration had been devoted to the task of putting through massive fiscal reforms.
With the two-fold purpose of strengthening the government's financial structure and ensuring adequate financial reserves for further national development:
- We cut down on spending, and passed legislation to increase taxes.
- We established austerity measures across the full sweep of government activities and operations to ensure prudent public expenditures.
- And we took strong steps to consolidate public services and rationalize the bureaucracy, to minimize cost and maximize output.
With greater financial resources forthcoming, this government has now embarked on the second - and perhaps most important -- phase of its economic reform program.
The organizing principle of this phase seeks to bring the fruits of our recent fiscal reforms to bear on our efforts to reduce poverty and advance the Social Reform Agenda.
In defining the immediate factors relevant to the attainment of our objectives under this phase, I wish to lay emphasis on four particulars:
- First, the security against poverty and all forms of social discrimination;
- Second, the security against hunger;
- Third, the security of livelihood through a more equitable distribution of opportunities and national resources;
- And fourth, the security of decent homes, better schools, and better health care and public services.
It is within this 4-point framework of growth and social equity that we must now undertake an assessment of our progress thus far.
The task begins at the national level -- where strategic decisions must be made, and where overall development policies must be assessed and shaped according to the national vision.
- We must identify specific areas in the social reform program that require refinement and strengthening, and seek ways to improve the coordinative system between our agencies and the KALAHI initiative.
- We must ensure agreement in the policies that we pursue as separate government entities, and establish clear lines of accountability in terms of expected outcomes.
- And we must together commit greater public investments in the effort to bring the fruits of economic progress to those who need them most.
Our overriding strategic goal is to guarantee that the poor and the disadvantaged in the 10 priority provinces have all the opportunities and benefits yielded by a stronger and more resilient economy.
I believe it possible to supersede the current system of administering support for the poor in those provinces, and substitute it with a more effective program of employment and increased rural productivity.
This revitalized effort for the priority provinces should be governed by a number of practical principles:
- Conditions must be provided under which greater numbers of the poor can make a living and work their way out of their difficulties.
- All major work undertaken must be useful - not just for the short-term, but useful enough to afford a lasting and sustainable improvement in the lives of the poor.
- Public work projects to be undertaken must have provisions in which local labor can be used to its fullest capacity.
- Programs to improve farm and fishery enterprises must be technically sound while demanding little or no cost to the farmer and the fisher.
- And efforts should be made to locate projects where they will serve the most number of impoverished farmers, fishers, and small rural entrepreneurs.
Whatever we plan, and whatever we should do in pursuit of national objectives, we cannot afford to lose time in haphazard policies that cannot produce results that are concrete and measurable.
To this end, we must be prepared to meet this nation's problems, and devise measures to make the bureaucracy more efficient even as it puts both the government and the Filipino people to productive work.
We must together recognize national potentials, as well as the additional burden on both the welfare of poor and the credibility of public service should we fail to come to terms with what we must accomplish.
I cannot overemphasize the significance of the effort which we are about to undertake.
I expect each of you to bear this in mind throughout our discussions here over the next two days.
Thank you.
napc speeches & presentations