President Gloria Arroyo on Monday pledged jobs, housing, food and education to millions of poor Filipinos as she laid out a three-year strategy to revive the ailing Philippine economy.
"The enemy to beat is ourselves," the 54 year-old economist and mother of three told Congress in her first state of the nation address, as she sought to dispel a growing sense of economic gloom and a series of political and security concerns, including a hostage crisis in the south.
Arroyo also acknowledged the anger of the poor, which boiled over into deadly rioting outside the presidential palace on May 1 following the arrest of her deposed predecessor Joseph Estrada on corruption charges.
Toppled in a bloodless revolt in January, former movie star Estrada maintains a strong following in the urban slums.
"They personally delivered the message that, 100 years after they revolted to establish this nation, they had yet to partake of the national dream," Arroyo said.
She said poverty surged 3.2 percentage points to 40 percent of the population of 76 million between the Asian crisis in mid-1997 and the abbreviated Estrada regime.
"Jobs, education, home ownership as well as food on every table," she said. "This, in common sense and plain talk, is the core of my vision."
The president vowed to create "a million new jobs in agriculture and fisheries within the year" and pledged to hold office at the agriculture department "until we can demonstrate our first 100 days' accomplishment in agriculture".
The government would spend 20 billion pesos (376 million dollars) every year on irrigation, post-harvest facilities, infrastructure, agricultural lending and research to achieve this, she said.
Arroyo urged Congress to enact a law making farm land acceptable as loan collateral and pledged to speed up a 14 year-old agrarian reform law by distributing 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) of public and private land every year.
She also vowed to build "a school building in every village by 2004", hire more teachers to improve the quality of education and develop the country's information technology potential.
The government would spend another 20 billion pesos annually to build 150,000 homes for ordinary workers and the urban poor, she said, urging Congress to create a housing department.
Arroyo said these aims would be achieved through "free enterprise with a social conscience", the modernisation of the agriculture sector that makes up a fifth of the domestic economy, a social bias for the poor and higher moral standards in government.
She acknowledged that the main export markets, which account for more than 56 percent of the economy, could not now be relied on as growth drivers amid a global downturn and urged local businessmen to take up the slack.
She pledged to cut red tape in the bureaucracy and pursue economic reforms to make the country more attractive to capital, using scarce government finances "prudently" so as not to compete with private borrowers.
The president also ordered members of her cabinet to "deliver tangible results within 12 months in fighting graft" and urged Congress to pass a law that would make money laundering a crime.
Arroyo said she would give "special attention to the kidnap for ransom syndicates".
"I want the bulk of them to be behind bars before the year is over," she said.
Addressing the recent volatility of the local currency, Arroyo said the government adhered to a freely convertible peso but appealed to speculators' conscience.
"Have you no pity for the common people, no love for your country?" she asked.
Security was tight with about 3,000 police guarding the lower house of parliament, as thousands of militant labour and leftist groups braved strong rains to denounce what they claimed was government's neglect for their plight -- MANILA (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
