President Aquino off to Bali, Indonesia for Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders' Meeting
President Benigno S. Aquino III left for Bali,
Indonesia to join other world leaders in the 21st Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’Meeting from October 6 to 8, 2013 in a bid to
revitalize trade.
The Chief Executive departed 8 a.m. Sunday at
the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 2 in Pasay City on board
a chartered Philippine Airlines PR 001 flight.
The President said that he remained committed to
work together with world leaders and ministers of the 21 Pacific-Rim economies
to meet key challenges in order to keep the global economy on the path to
recovery.
The world leaders will gather in Bali to
revitalize trade in keeping with the global economy on the path to recovery,
create jobs and move the region towards a more balanced and sustainable
long-term growth.
The President said his attendance to the APEC
will provide an opportunity to promote the Philippines before world business
leaders and investors as a suitable investment venue.
According to the APEC website, world leaders and
ministers will focus on strengthening free trade and investment in the region,
addressing growing inequities and environmental challenges that are a
bi-product of economic transition, and improving connectivity to facilitate the
cross-border movement of goods, people and capital to drive greater
productivity.
The APEC region is home to about three billion
people, and accounts for 45 percent of global trade and half of total gross
domestic product.
Vice President Jejomar C. Binay, Executive Secretary
Paquito N. Ochoa Jr. and other government officials sent off the President to
Bali Indonesia.
Following his attendance to the 21st APEC
Leaders’ Meeting, the President will participate in nine summits in Brunei
Darussalam when he joins fellow leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) in the 23rd ASEAN Summit in that country on October 9 and 10.
PND (js)
President Aquino reiterates country's commitment
to enhance cooperation with Pacific-Rim economies during APEC Leaders Meeting
President Benigno S. Aquino III said he will
reiterate the Philippines' commitment to enhance its cooperation with
Pacific-Rim economies in attaining the renewed confidence in the global economy
by laying the groundwork for increased trade and investment when he joins other
world leaders’ in the 21st Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’
Meeting from October 6 to 8, 2013.
In his departure speech at the Ninoy Aquino
International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 2 in Pasay City on Sunday, the Chief
Executive expressed optimism that world leaders will be able to map regional
initiatives and identify the gaps and opportunities for APEC to move forward.
"Nagbubukal ang malawak at pangmatagalang
kaunlaran sa matibay na samahan ng mga bansa. Naipupunla ang kasaganahang
kapaki-pakinabang sa bawat bansa sa maayos na ugnayan, sa patas na kalakalan,
at paglalatag ng pagkakataon para sa ating mamamayan," the President said
before he departed for Bali, Indonesia.
"Ang paglipad natin sa Indonesia para
makilahok sa ikadalawampu’t isang APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting ay patunay sa
dedikasyon natin tungo sa katuparan ng adhikaing ito. Subok na po ng mahabang
panahon ang pagkakaibigan ng Indonesia at Pilipinas, lalo na bilang magkatuwang
sa pagsusulong ng kapayapaan. Lalo pa nating patitibayin ang ating relasyon sa
Indonesia at sa ating mga karatig-bansa, tungo sa pagpapalakas ng ating ekonomiya
," the President said.
Leaders will come together on October 7 and 8 to
develop policies aimed at improving the business environment in the region amid
the global crisis.
"Makikibahagi rin tayo sa paglalatag ng mga
inisyatiba upang itaas ang antas ng edukasyon sa rehiyon, makamit ang mas
maunlad na imprastraktura, at maitutok ang nararapat na suporta sa micro,
small, and medium enterprises. Mabibigyan din tayo ng pagkakataong
makipagpulong sa mga pinuno ng iba’t ibang bansa, at sa kanilang mga kilalang negosyante
sa APEC," he said.
The President said he will invite foreign
investors to put up their business in the Philippines.
"Hihikayatin natin silang sulit na sulit
nang maging destinasyon ang Pilipinas, hindi lang para sa turismo, kundi maging
sa pagpapalago ng kanilang mga negosyo," he stressed.
Following his attendance to the 21st APEC
Leaders’ Meeting, the President will participate in nine summits in Brunei
Darussalam when he joins fellow leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) in the 23rd ASEAN Summit in that country on October 9 and 10.
"Mula sa Indonesia, tutulak naman tayo sa
Brunei upang dumalo sa ASEAN Summit. Bukod sa mga pinuno sa Timog Silangan at
Silangang Asya, makikipagdiyalogo rin tayo sa mga opisyal ng Korea, Tsina,
India, at pati na rin sa ating strategic partners na bansang Hapon at Estados
Unidos," he said.
The President said his attendance to the ASEAN
Summit will provide an opportunity to showcase before world leaders and
investors the accomplishments of his administration in implementing widespread
and meaningful reforms in governance.
"Taas-noo nating ibabahagi sa kanila ang
positibong transpormasyon sa bansa, at ang tumataas nating kakayahan na
makipagtulungan sa iba’t ibang larangan: sa usapin man ng climate change at
disaster management, maritime security, at sa pagpapaigting ng free trade
agreement sa mga karatig-bayan sa pamamagitan ng Regional Comprehensive
Economic Partnership," he said.
"Malinaw ang batayang prinsipyo ng
pakikiisa natin sa ganitong mga kumperensya: Bawat bansa, papaangat pa lang o
ganap nang maunlad, ay hindi makakausad mag-isa. Anumang pagsubok na
pinagdadaanan ng isang bansa, ay siya ring mga hamong hinaharap ng buong
daigdig. Bilang responsableng kapitbahay, mangunguna tayo sa pagdamay at
paggalang sa mga bansang kasalo nating naninirahan sa nag-iisang mundo,” the
President said.
"Gaya ng lagi, nasa malayong biyahe man
tayo, lagi kong bitbit bilang prayoridad ang interes ng mas nakakarami. Sa
ating pagbalik, taglay natin ang mas malawak na kakayahan at punto-de-bista
upang tugunan ang anumang problemang lumalapag sa atin," he concluded. PND
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Gov't to spend P14.3-M for President Aquino's
attendance in Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam meetings
The government has earmarked some P14.3 million
for President Benigno S. Aquino III’s participation in two key regional summits
in Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam from October 6 to 10, Executive Secretary
Paquito N. Ochoa Jr. said on Sunday.
President Aquino left this morning for Bali via
a chartered flight, along with Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, Trade
Secretary Gregory Domingo, Socio-Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan,
Cabinet Secretary to the President Jose Rene Almendras, Presidential Management
Staff head Julia Andrea Abad, PCDSPO Secretary Ramon Carandang and Presidential
Protocol chief Celia Anna Feria, his first stop for a series of meetings in the
next five days.
Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario, who flew
earlier to Indonesia, awaits the Philippine delegation in Bali for the 21st
APEC Economic Leaders Meeting (AELM) and the APEC CEO Summit to be held on
October 6 to 8. He will also join the President in the 23rd ASEAN Summit and
Related Meetings to be held on October 9 and 10 in Brunei Darussalam.
The expenses cover transportation,
accommodation, food and equipment, among other requirements, for the President
and his 84-member official delegation.
“President Aquino is expected to share a number
of Philippine initiatives during the scheduled meetings in Indonesia and Brunei
Darussalam,” Ochoa said.
“Some of these will be on the areas of
environmental protection and climate change mitigation, food security, women
and the economy, infrastructure investment, among others.”
Ochoa added: “Our President is also expected to
press for the need to strengthen cooperation in cross-border education and
skills training to bolster development of human resources amid economic
growth.”
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs
(DFA), the President will attend the APEC CEO Summit as a panelist on the
session on inclusive growth together with Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra of
Thailand and President Ollanta Humala of Peru. The APEC CEO Summit, considered
a premier business event, is attended by distinguished global CEOs from
throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
The DFA also said President Aquino will meet
with members of the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) and counterparts from
the other 20 member-economies of APEC to discuss issues of mutual concerns,
particularly on the promotion of trade liberalization and facilitation,
economic technical cooperation and people-to-people connectivity.
In Brunei, President Aquino will take part in
the 23rd ASEAN Summit and Related Meetings, where he is expected to attend at
least nine different meetings between the ASEAN and Japan, the Republic of
Korea, China, the United States and the United Nations, among others, according
to the DFA.
The Chief Executive will also attend the Gala
Dinner to be hosted by His Royal Highness Sultan Bolkiah on October 9, as well
as the closing ceremony and the handover of the ASEAN Chairmanship of Brunei to
Myanmar at the end of the Summit, the DFA said. (PND)
President Aquino arrives in Bali, Indonesia for
21st APEC Summit
BALI, Indonesia) President Benigno Aquino III
arrived here on Sunday to attend the 21st Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
from October 6 to 8.
The President left Manila at 8 a.m. Sunday for
Bali, Indonesia on board a chartered Philippine Airlines flight PR 001.
The Chief Executive was accompanied by a lean
delegation that include Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario, Finance
Secretary Cesar Purisima, Trade Secretary Gregory Domingo, Socioeconomic
Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan, Cabinet Secretary Rene Almendras, and
Presidential Management Staff Chief Secretary Julia Abad.
The President and his delegation arrived at
Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali around 11: 45 a.m.
In his first day here, the President is
scheduled to attend the APEC CEO Summit at 2 p.m. where he will have
conversation with other world leaders regarding the theme “Why Inclusive Growth
Matters”.
He is also set to attend a dinner hosted by the
APEC CEO Summit at 7 p.m. at Nusa Dua Beach Hotel.
Presidential Communications Development and
Strategic Planning Secretary Ramon Carandang said the President is expected to
share the reforms that the Aquino administration have undertaken during the
last three years that “have borne a lot of fruit in terms of increased
confidence in the Philippine economy and in the management of the economy.”
One of the main agenda of the President is
likewise to lure more foreign investors to invest in the Philippines.
“He will be talking to people from the business
community and he will be having informal discussions also with a number of
other world leaders,” Carandang said. PND (jb)
Aquino government welcomes SWS survey showing
seven out of 10 Filipinos still believe that lasting peace is still attainable
The Aquino government welcomed the latest Social
Weather Stations (SWS) survey showing that seven out of 10 Filipinos still
believe that just and lasting peace is attainable, a Palace official said on
Sunday.
Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte
issued the statement in an interview aired over government-run radio station
dzRB Radyo ng Bayan following reports that majority of the Filipinos are still
hopeful that an agreement can be forged between the Government of the
Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
"We hope that this will be sustained as the
government continues to work and exert its best efforts to achieve a just and
lasting peace for our citizens in Mindanao," she said.
According to the SWS survey results, conducted
from June 28 to 30, both the Muslim and non-Muslim Filipinos still believe that
the nation can attain a just and lasting peace.
The survey also shows that 34 percent of
respondents in Mindanao are “very hopeful” of a peace agreement between the
government and the MILF, compared to 30 percent in the Visayas, 27 percent in
Metro Manila, and 24 percent in the rest of Luzon.
Public expectation of a peace agreement between
the government and the MILF is also strongest in Mindanao, with 23 percent
expecting it to happen this year, compared to 9 percent in Balance Luzon, 4
percent in Metro Manila, and 3 percent in the Visayas. PND (js)
President Aquino underscores importance of
inclusive growth
BALI, Indonesia) President Benigno S. Aquino III
underscored the importance of inclusive growth or the task of government to
ensure that everyone benefits from a country’s economic growth, saying that
“inclusiveness matters because it ensures the stability of societies, and
consequently, the sustainability of growth.”
In his remarks at the 21st Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation CEO Summit Conversation with Leaders entitled “Why Inclusive Growth
Matters,” the President stressed that including all to pitch in for a country’s
economic growth empowers people to become contributors to nation building.
“The challenge for governments has deepened:
When in the past we gravitated towards metrics that reflect merely the wealth
collectively amassed by an economy, more and more the task of governments has
become ensuring that this wealth is not concentrated in the hands of the few,
but rather that it is equitably utilized to raise levels of human development.
In this manner, we engender a situation wherein the broader base of society can
benefit from opportunities opening up through economic growth,” the President
said.
“Without these factors, a nation may perhaps
experience periods of cyclical growth; any progress, however, will be prone to
disruption. Because so long as a society has reason to clamor for
change—whether due to a pervading sense of inequality, injustice, unfairness,
or lack of opportunity—it will find ways to do so. This, perhaps, offers some
insight into the question posed to us today: "Why does inclusive growth
matter?" First: Inclusiveness matters because it ensures the stability of
societies, and consequently, the sustainability of growth,” he added.
“The equation for sustainability is also
integral to a second, perhaps, more important aspect. On top of fostering
stability, social inclusiveness also empowers citizens to become bona fide
economic actors that can productively contribute to nation-building. It allows
them to buy into the system, from which they can reap benefits,” the President
further said.
He pointed out that in the Philippines, his
government had focused a substantial amount of the national budget to fund
social services in education, health and poverty alleviation in advocating
inclusive growth.
He said the pro-poor Conditional Cash Transfer
(CCT) program now benefits four million families and has even expanded its
scope to include families with children in high school as “there is a forty
percent increase in income for those who finished high school versus elementary
graduates.”
The President also said that providing the
opportunity for all Filipinos to learn by giving more classrooms, textbooks,
chairs and tables; and the introduction of a new school curriculum “will
increase the competitiveness of our graduates in the global arena.”
“I also signed into law two bills that have
languished in Congress for years, not least because of intense lobbying from
entrenched interests: The Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act,
which mandates access to information on family planning, and the Sin Tax Reform
Act, which earmarks increased revenue from tobacco and alcohol into health
services. This will certainly accelerate our Universal Health Care agenda,
which we continue to aggressively pursue,” the President said.
He noted that “these are direct government
interventions that we are pursuing as a proactive way of encouraging the
equitable distribution of wealth—part of a concerted plan to ensure that all
sectors take part in economic growth and partake in the prosperity it brings.”
“Our task is to ensure that our people have the
wherewithal to utilize, and indeed maximize, the opportunities opening up with
the newfound revitalization of our economy,” the President said. PND (rck)
President Aquino says he perfectly understands
why United States President Barack Obama cancelled his scheduled visit to the
Philippines
BALI, Indonesia) President Benigno S. Aquino III
said on Sunday that he and his government perfectly understood why United
States President Barack Obama had to cancel a scheduled trip to the Philippines
to work at addressing his government’s shutdown following the inability of the
US Congress to pass the country’s national budget.
In the Q&A portion of the 21st Asia-Pacific
Economic Leaders (APEC) CEO Summit being held here, the President said Obama
had to act on the US Shutdown in order to immediately stabilize the volatile
situation affecting his country at the moment.
“…President Obama has to attend to the
government shutdown. The US economy is the number one economy in the world.
What happens there affects all of us and there are various estimates of how
much losses conceivably can happen for both the American economy and the world
economy,” the President said.
He added that Obama understood the importance of
addressing the situation in the United States as “the world economy obviously
is not in a position to withstand too much shock at this point in time.”
“We are just recovering as a global economy,”
the President said referring to the turmoil the region had just recently
undergone.
“So we perfectly understand the situation.
Stability in their economy promotes stability for the rest of the world’s
economy and that is something we need if we are to make a better life for all
of our people,” he said. PND (rck)
President Aquino vows to concentrate on good
governance
BALI, Indonesia) Getting re-elected for another
term as President of the Philippines remains farthest from the mind of
President Benigno S. Aquino III who said on Sunday that he will continue
implementing his style of good governance in order for Filipinos to get used to
his leadership style and serve as a basis the people may use when they decide
on who will lead them by 2016.
Speaking to the attendees of the 21st
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit being held here from October 6
to 8, the President said he would rather remain as a “one-term” President and
be free from the temptation of having to please everybody in order to sustain a
re-election bid.
“My father used to say that in the pre-Martial
Law days, this was before 1972, if they had to raise fuel prices by five centavos
he would have nationwide strikes that were difficult to govern. Now, if you
make an unpopular decision, but it is necessary for the future good, you are
not worried about the next election. Whereas, if you are concerned about the
next term, everything you do has to be in the backdrop of how to secure your
next years in office, which probably will be such a temptation to any leader to
try and please the people all the time regardless whether or not it is good,”
the President said.
He pointed out that once people get used to good
governance, they will ultimately seek it out from their leaders.
“Now, beyond 2016, the belief is, if our people
are so used to this type of governance, then whoever will portray themselves as
continuing the policies we have set will be the one to get into office,” the
President said.
“So, at the end of the day, our mantra is: The
bosses ultimately are our people and they will decide and they will choose the
person and the entity that will hopefully continue the policies we have
instituted,” he added. PND (rck)
