MANILA, 27 July 2004 — President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo yesterday outlined her plans to fight poverty and corruption in this East Asian Country.
In her first state of the nation speech since winning May elections, Arroyo linked her anti-poverty fight with her decision to pull Manila’s troops out of Iraq last week to save the life of a Filipino hostage at the cost of strained ties with Washington.
“I have shown that government does care even for a single Filipino life,” Arroyo told a joint session of Congress. “Now we must show that we care for the rest of the Filipino people, even the weakest among us.”
The focus of the 40-minute speech was to flesh out plans for economic reforms aimed at easing the Philippines’ wrenching poverty that has led nearly 10 percent of the population to seek work overseas. But Arroyo opened by celebrating the release of hostage Angelo dela Cruz and insisting she was following her top policy priority — the safety of the overseas workers who drive the Philippine economy with their remittances.
“I cannot apologize for being a protector of my people,” she said. “Sacrificing Angelo dela Cruz would have been a pointless provocation. It would have put the lives of 1.5 million Filipinos in the Middle East at risk by making them a part of the war.
“Ask yourself this, if Angelo dela Cruz had been sacrificed, what would have changed for the better in Iraq today?”
The United States, Australia and other allies have sharply criticized Arroyo’s pullout decision, saying it encouraged more kidnappings in Iraq and broke the Philippines’ commitment to the US-led coalition there.
While the crisis clearly remains a concern, Arroyo said it had galvanized the Philippine public. “We must seize the unity we have attained... and save our economy... put it back in order before it finds itself beyond hope of repair,” she said.
Arroyo also presented five reform packages aimed at creating about 6 million jobs in the next six years, attracting foreign investment, fighting corruption, improving education and making the country less dependent on foreign energy.
She promised a “lean and mean” bureaucracy, warned that reforms will hit the wealthy harder than the poor, and urged an end to bitter political divisions that have dogged the country and scared away foreign investors.
—Additional input from agencies
