MANILA, 1 July 2004 — President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo urged Filipinos to leave deep divisions behind yesterday, and reached out to the poor who backed her film star opponent with an inaugural address promise to create up to 10 million jobs by 2010.
“I can’t do everything alone. I need all Filipinos to unify,” Arroyo said in the speech before flying to her swearing-in ceremony in Cebu, one of her strongholds in the May 10 election. “All eyes are on us,” she added.
She aimed much of her speech at the one-third of her nation’s 84 million people who live in wrenching poverty and who largely supported action film star Fernando Poe Jr., whose camp predicts a bleak future under Arroyo’s leadership.
“The government must make tough choices, but this I promise: They will be tougher on those who have it easy than on those who have it tough already,” she said, gaining applause from a crowd of up to 50,000 people at Manila’s Rizal Park.
Arroyo, a 57-year-old US-educated economist, said her troubled country was at a crossroads following a bitter election campaign. “There are more things that bind than divide us,” Arroyo said. “Candidates all fought with conviction. If only we can fight together, with the same conviction and advance our nation’s progress.”
Arroyo said it is “immoral” to bask in great wealth while many people lack medicine, housing, water, and challenged the business community to “embrace selfless nationalism.”
“Invest in our people and our country instead of giving excuses for keeping your money abroad, where it can’t put our people to work,” she said.
Arroyo vowed to crack down on waste, corruption, influence peddlers, tax cheats and coup plotters.
