ITS THE ECONOMY, STUDENT!

By Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, PhD

12 January 2012 Manila Hotel

WHAT I LEFT BEHIND

A new Philippines with 7.9 percent growth after an entire decade of unbroken growth
Nearly nine out of 10 Filipinos with access to health insurance, m ore than 100,000 new classrooms built, 9 m illion jobs created

Roads and bridges, ports and airports, irrigation facilities wherever most needed Free or subsidized rice, discounted fuel and electricity, conditional cash transfers for the poor

BUILD UP, DONT TEAR DOWN

The gains I achieved were built on the efforts of previous leaders.

Each successive government must build on the successes and progress of the previous ones: - advance the programs that work, - leave behind those that dont.

DESTRUCTIVE POLITICS

Politics of division -> slumping growth, under-achieving government, escalating crime and conflict, the excesses of a presidential clique that enjoys fancy cars and gun culture

The weak state -> a large gap between rich and poor one exploited for political ends and a political system based on patronage and, ultimately, corruption to support that patronage Continuing threat of double-dip global recession

A BETTER ALTERNATIVE:
Only by enlarging the economic pie can there be more and bigger slices for everyone. Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap ?? Now more than ever, as the world faces renewed threats of financial and even sovereign defaults as well as economic recession, it is high time for us to return to the commitment to growth that has been the primary objective of every administration in the past.

A WHOLE NEW INDUSTRY: BPO

MY ECONOMIC VISION

My dream was for the Philippines to break out of the boom and bust cycle of an economy dependent on global markets for agricultural commodities, and pursue consistent and sustainable growth anchored on a large domestic market and the resiliency of Filipino workers at home and abroad.

PROTECTING OUR OVERSEAS WORKERS

The President failed to rescue our countrymen from Chinas death row, or promptly evacuate them from national disaster in Japan, or comprehensively secure them from political unrest in the Middle East. Protecting them in the future will require contingency planning and continuous backdoor diplomacy with their host governments, while creating alternative jobs at home through a renewed commitment to economic expansion.

FLIP-FLOPPING ON INFRASTRUCTURE
C ancelling

flood control projects in Central Luzon, investors suing us abroad, only one PPP project after 18 months!

Too late for catch-up government spending this year? Or just in time for the election campaign next year?

MY AGRICULTURAL REFORMS

IF NOT RICE SELF-SUFFICIENCY, WHATS OUR VISION FOR AGRICULTURE?

The real challenge in this century is to make the finite land that we have planted to agriculture ever more productive, through agricultural modernization founded on social equity. By making more food available at lower prices especially to our poor, we are effectively bringing down the required level of real wages in our countryalready among the highest in the world and helping to make our manufacturing industries globally competitive again.

LAND PRODUCTIVITY, NOT JUST OWNERSHIP

The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Programshould now be a developmental program aiming explicitly to raise farm productivityso that the country as a whole will benefit from the tenurial rearrangement. The landowners must set the example of compliance with the lawsuch as the Arroyos in my husbands family, who submitted long ago to land reform even without an order from the Supreme Court.

MY INVESTMENT IN EDUCATION

We increased the total budget for education by nearly four times: from Ps 6.6 Billion in 2000 to Ps 24.3 Billion in 2010 when I stepped down. We built 100,000 new classrooms, more than the three previous administrations combined. We supported one in every two private high school studentsa total of 1.2 million students--with the GASTPE financial voucher program. In 2009 alone, we doubled TESDAs budget.

MY INVESTMENT IN EDUCATION

Invested on Crucial Resources for Learning (in PB)

30,000 P23.8B 25,000 P17.9B 20,000 P14.1B P13.6B P13.1B P10.4B P9.3B 10,000 P6.6B P20.4B P22.7B P24.2B

In Million Pesos

15,000

5,000

0 School Heads Training School Seats Textbooks Teachers GASTPE School MOOE Classrooms

FY 2000 29

FY 2001 0 83 1,326

FY 2002 296 500 1,566 2,037 774 2,129 5,817

FY 2003 0 450 517 0 1,284 2,171 5,983

FY 2004 323 450 46 1,002 1,537 2,583 8,119

FY 2005 292 84 1,000 452 856 1,722 3,059 6,115

FY 2006 174 581 1,000 0 957 1,974 3,563 9,677

FY 2007 214 940 1,000 1,300 2,160 2,836 5,477 9,890

FY 2008 525 940 1,000 665 983 3,148 6,720 6,393

FY 2009 330 1,040 1,062 217 1,284 2,640 7,201 8,938

FY 2010* 391 800 877 2,073 1,058 3,940 7,198 7,865

699 751 5,160

0 759 1,751 5,392

Unit Prices Used for Estimating Costs:

22

EFFECTIVE ANTI-POVERTY PROGRAMS

Increased PhilHealth insurance coverage Set up nearly 16,000 Botika ng Barangay outlets to deliver affordable medicines to the poor Ordered the drug companies to reduce their prices Energized 98.9 percent of our barangays Provided water service to 70 percent of previously waterless municipalities And introduced Four Ps, the highly successful conditional cash transfer (CCT) program.

PLUS EFFECTIVE MACROMANAGEMENT

Despite the global food and oil price spikes of 2008, domestic inflation slowly declined on my watch, bottoming out at 3.9 percent by the time I stepped down in June 2010. Unemployment, which had peaked at nearly 14 percent under President Estrada, was averaging only around 7.5 percent toward the end of my term in office.

REALLY PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT

On my watch as President, the countrys f orest cover increased f rom 5.39 million hectares in 2001 to 7.17 million hectares by 2009. We registered 40 projects abroad to reduce greenhouse gases the sixth largest number of such projects among all countries. I signed a large number of laws to codify environmental protectionincluding new legislation f or Ecological Solid Waste Management, W ildlife Resource Conservation and Protection, Clean Water, and Biofuels. I devoted every Friday to environmental issues. I created the Presidential Task Force on Climate Change in 2007, later enhanced into the Climate Change Commission under the Climate Change Act of 2009. Unf ortunately, President Aquino to date has not yet even convened this commission.

ESSENTIALS OF GOOD MANAGEMENT

1. Planning ahead -- not pointing fingers and blaming others after the fact 2. Hands-on execution -- not absenteeism, nor coming to work late and leaving early

3. Exercise control without fear or favor neither selective vendettas nor KKK coddling