Philippine Business Magazine: Volume 9 No. 1 - Policy
Ground level
The new Electric Power Industry Reform Act creates a lot of investment and privatization opportunities
By Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

Addressing a gathering of the Makati Business Club, President Arroyo challenged the executives to get directly involved in projects that will benefit the disadvantaged sectors of society. She believes that with the group’s “collective advantage of education, knowledge, experience, and mature economic perspective,” they can make a difference in making the people feel the fruits of development. Excerpts:

On 19 January 2002, our nation marked the first anniversary of Edsa 2. On the eve of this occasion, the Inquirer wrote an editorial that said the following: “Thanks to the proclivity of Filipinos to shoot themselves in the feet, they are the worst enemies of their country’s recovery from economic slowdown and political turbulence.”

Indeed, it is very sad that we have a spectacle, such that at a time when we as a nation should be pulling together, we are instead pushing each other apart. As a result of decades of retarded economic and social development, and as a result of the trauma that our country has undergone this past year-and-a-half or so, we have become a nation deeply divided and fractured. This is the lesson we should have learned from May 1.

But have we forgotten? Just a year ago we were deeply mired in a hole. Investor confidence had dropped. Rampant corruption had taken over the institutions of government and the very seat of power. Political instability is all over the place. And the world had written us off.

Significant Strides
Today, we have made significant strides to arrest the deterioration and create a turnaround.

Indeed, we have gone a long way to bringing our country back on the radar screens of the world. A new cabinet picked as much for their integrity as for their competence and qualifications has brought professionalism in public service to new heights. Much of what the world’s investment community has asked of us, we have thus far delivered. The Power Bill, the Money Laundering Act, long considered litmus tests of our political will to legislate reforms, were put into law — firmly overcoming years of delay. Our public deficit has been placed under control. Interest rates and inflation rates have declined. Our economy continues to grow despite faltering economies all around us.

Even recent unemployment rates have shown periods of decline despite widespread perception of increased lay-offs. This paradox of macroeconomic level statistics that don’t jibe with ground level perceptions serves to highlight the importance of target-driven efforts by government to achieve perceptible results at the ground level.
In my State of the Nation Address last year, I outlined numerous programs to address the issue of poverty reduction and development. I deliberately placed emphasis on target-driven initiatives at the ground level as opposed to the macro-level.

Perhaps because of this emphasis on ground level results, I have sometimes been criticized for lacking focus or having no clear economic agenda. But I have always considered sound macroeconomics to be an ever-present precondition to achieving sustained ground results. My yearend report, in fact, showed that we did achieve those sound macroeconomic fundamentals.

As early as the day I became president, I said, that it was time to bind the nation’s wounds, heal its deep divisions, and bring all the people together in a new shared hope for a better future in a moral society. This means that our national leadership will have to undergo a tedious period of balancing the needs and aspirations of most, if not all, of our major sectors. Otherwise, if our approach is exclusionary, the resulting agitation of the major sectors left behind will tend to create instability, which in turn hampers economic activity.

Unfortunately, the resulting process of reaching out to diverse sectors is often misunderstood to be politicking or, worse, a betrayal of principles. There are purists who may not like it but the fact is my duty is to be president to all Filipinos, whether like you, they were in Edsa 2 or whether they were in Edsa 3.

Concrete Projects
I am challenging you to roll up your sleeves and renew the partnership for progress at the ground level. There are numerous areas that you could be involved in, if you are not yet involved right now.

One of our lingering problems is that of rural electrification. Of the 42,000 barangays nationwide, over 4,000 still do not have electric power. Access to electricity will dramatically change the lives of people within those 4,000 barangays, enabling them to do things we take for granted like eating, reading, doing housework comfortably at night. It will enable them to irrigate, make ice, refrigerate agricultural and marine products, process food. Indeed, it will enable them to enter the 21st century.

Another challenge is to modernize and strengthen our public education system. We have 4,000 public high schools and over 10,000 elementary schools nationwide with school buildings in over 40,000 barangays. But there are 1,600 barangays that don’t have a school building. And for those that do have school buildings many are in need of equipment and teacher training. Most of the companies represented here still draw the majority of your workers from the public school system. Our public schools still account for the primary and secondary education of the vast majority of your students, your future workers. And therefore it also serves you well to make our public schools enter the 21st century.

A third area of need is housing for the poor. In the State of the Nation Address where I said I concentrated on ground level targets rather than macro targets, I set a target of a 100,000 low-cost units and 50,000 socialized units by the end of July. These are ambitious targets and so far, compared to many of the other targets, I find these targets the most problematic. But you can contribute towards the achievement of these targets through such programs as housing for humanity which provides housing for relocated squatters. You could donate to build a house or even volunteer to build one. The Habitat house costs 85,000 pesos. But we have DSWD models that cost 25,000 pesos. So therefore, your money would go a longer way in fact by adapting the more modest model.

A fourth challenge is job creation. Cito Lorenzo, one of your trustees, has signed up as Presidential Adviser for Agricultural Job Generation, and he has helped develop a plan for generating one million jobs in agriculture. You should help him out there. For example, Nestle is providing the technology and ready market for coffee growers in Mindanao. Our farmers are always in need of technology, credit, and markets. Regardless of whatever business you are engaged in, you will be able to contribute. You can probably contribute to be a part of the solution.

A fifth challenge is electoral modernization. Our archaic system of voting and manual counting of ballots cannot be allowed to persist into the elections of 2004. It is in your interest to get involved through support groups such as NAMFREL that are working to modernize our electoral system. Because the COMELEC is a constitutional body, both the executive and congress have limited ability to involve ourselves in COMELEC’s decisions and efforts regarding modernization. But the private sector can do so. You can play a constructive part of the solution.

Clearly, there are a number of many other specific areas where concerned citizens can add value to society, to be among those who engage in the constructive, help generate jobs, and create national wealth.

Speech delivered by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during the 20th anniversary of the Makati Business Club on 25 January 2002 at Grand Ballroom, Hotel Inter-Continental, Manila