President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. at the ASEAN Editors and Economic Opinion Leaders Forum: Fireside Chat “Tapping the Philippines Dynamic Growth Story”

ABS-CBN NEWS CHANNEL HOST FEDERICO HIZON: Mr. President, how are you feeling today?

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, much better than I was maybe a couple of weeks ago. [laughs]

MR. HIZON: We are glad that you’re in good health.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, thank you.

MR. HIZON: And thank you so much for spending time with us and talking about the Philippine dynamic growth story.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, it is certainly been an exciting time for the Philippines in many senses because we have really approached the entire system of governance, especially as it pertains to the economy, by making serious structural changes in the way that we do business.

And of course, like any large change that can be – that is being attempted. It is not an easy thing to do.

The bureaucracy is a very… You know, I think… I characterize it as being akin to one of these very large tankers where you turn the wheel and it takes what? 10 kilometers for it to actually start moving.

And my experience has been a government bureaucracy is very much like that and so it’s much of the – much of the frustration comes from an impatience.

Can we not move this faster? Can we not move this? Can we not get this done much, much more quickly?

And so that is part of the – of the structural changes that we’re talking about.

The structural changes that we are trying to make in terms of the way government and – works, but also in being more – being able to respond more quickly.

And to that wheel, when we turn the wheel, let’s just say we have decided to change direction or take on a new policy, how to be able to adjust much

more quickly than we are able to adjust now?

So, that’s a – that’s the – it’s a very interesting problem. It’s a difficult problem, but it’s an important thing that we have to do.

And I think we are beginning to be met with some success.

MR. HIZON: And, Mr. President, when you’re turning that wheel, some say it’s “pawis” steering. It’s a perspiration steering. Are we now moving more towards power steering?

THE PRESIDENT: I should hope so.

MR. HIZON: Faster reforms?

THE PRESIDENT: I hope so.

I think that that is certainly one of the aims of what we are trying to do.

We have a very…We view the – the global economy in very many ways in that, there is a great deal of volatility as we have seen in the past years.

And in fact, it was – we had hoped that after COVID, that things would calm down and that we would set directions and we would slowly just move in those direct – or not so slowly, quickly move down that road that we have set for ourselves.

However, the shocks have come in and unexpected not only in the economic world but also in the political world, the geopolitical world. And I was – I remember very early on in the administration, I would always describe the geopolitical situation in Philippines, in Southeast Asia, in the South China Sea as the most complicated geopolitical situation in the world.

Boy, was I wrong. That changed very, very quickly. And so now we are surrounded by these geopolitical upheavals.

And so there is… One of the main things that we are striving for is to provide stability and to be able to say that whatever shocks, we should learn from our COVID experiences, we should also learn from the experiences that we are now presently going through, to be able to say that we are more robust and no matter what happens, that we are able to be resilient and we are able to adjust.

And that is – that is the – that is what we are trying to do.

So, there is an element of stability and robustness. And…However, as I have just explained, the world has brought upon us many changes. So, there is also a need to be agile. So that is the balance that we have to find.

MR: HIZON: So, Mr. President, how are you providing this stability for the Philippine economy?

THE PRESIDENT: For the Philippine economy, what we have tried to do, of course, is that… In my view, the important – one of the most important elements of that, well, political stability, of course, is at the very heart of it.

But more than that is a – are the, we have to change the ways that we do business.

Now, we have been talking about the global economy for a very long time now. And certainly, it is very much the case.

But we, in the Philippines, have really been dependent on traditional or established markets, investors. And that has had to change and we – and the changes in that is that we do – is that we then go to first, we do business in a different way in the world today, so must the Philippines. And that’s the change – those are the changes that we are trying to do.

Secondly, we need to go out into the world a great deal more. For

example, what… I describe it as that we have to engage non-traditional suppliers, non-traditional investors to be part of the Philippine economy.

And when I say non-traditional, what I mean by non-traditional is non-traditional to the Philippines.

The countries that we have not really traded with before, areas, regions that we have not really engaged before. And sometimes the reason that we haven’t done that is simply because of – due physical distance.

We are now talking a great deal more to the EU but – as a trading bloc.

But also we are doing a lot bilaterally with the different countries that are EU members.

Latin America also presents a great opportunity. And we are trying to engage as well, considering that there is such great commonality between the Philippines and the Latin American countries.

I often describe the Philippines as the only Latin country in Asia. And I think that is to our benefit, and we should take advantage of that, and we should build on that.

So, there are very… Canada has now become one of our strongest partners. France has – will be one of our strongest partners, I believe.

So, these are – these are non-traditional for the Philippines in terms of trade and that we have to engage that and that even that – that it goes over as well into the question of stability.

And when we – when we talk about commerce, trade, what the businessman, what investors are looking for is stability and vision.

You need stability so that…And you have to have a vision. You have to have a plan. You want – you have to have a goal and that can be reg – that is recognizable to prospective businesses that they see, “Okay this is what the Philippines wants to do and these are what they are try – these are the things that the Philippines is doing to try to achieve that goal. We should be part of that.

And that is the kind of, that is the way that we are trying to make the Philippines – that we are making it, it is succeeding. That we are making the Philippines a more investor-friendly and more investor-attractive country.

MR. HIZON: You talk about investor-friendly, you talk about political and economic stability. When I talk to foreign investors, Mr. President, they’re always telling me about the ease of doing business.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

MR. HIZON: The number, not dozens, but the hundreds of signatures that you need to be able to get, let’s say, things done. Right? They say it’s about 200 to 300 signatures. While in Singapore, it only takes one to two days to sign up.

I lived in Singapore for many years. And then in Thailand, it takes about two months. In Vietnam… How can we align the ease of doing business with our ASEAN neighbors?

THE PRESIDENT: Singapore’s just a touch smaller than the Philippines. [laughter] So, maybe, maybe in that sense there’s a… But of course, that is a perfectly valid statement.

That’s a perfectly valid insight and it really, the bureaucracy…That’s why I mentioned the bureaucracy earlier, has been one of the main, shall we say roadblocks to quicker processing and that simple things.

Things like…We were just – we were in a meeting the other day, the things about – things like getting a new – getting a copy of your birth certificate.

MR: HIZON: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: And we went through the process and said, how does it go and how long does it take? And it takes a month maybe, a month and a half.

Why would it take a month and a half? Because again, you have to go through this entire process which is very slow and it’s still done by hand. The files are still in a handwritten form and so that’s why we are trying to – we are trying to fix that.

And we are minimizing now the necessary contact between the citizen and the government for anything that they do and we are relying very much on the new technologies, on the internet.

Because we are 7,600 plus islands and it is too much to ask for somebody who is living on a relatively isolated island to find a way to go to their regional center, go to the government office there, and get the documents that they have.

But we have this advantage. We have this technology. We have this. For the Philippines, for a country like the Philippines, which as I said is a very large archipelago. I think we are the second most islands in the world, only following Indonesia.

And for us, that is a godsend and we fully intend to make full use and maximize the use of those technologies. And we now have what we call the eGov app, which is an application which allows you over the internet to get in touch with different government agencies and in that way do your business over online.

And you know the – we are – our – for example, our personal identification, our IDs are 70 percent now? Is it 70 percent of our personal IDs are now digital. And that’s something that you can get immediately just by filling out the form.

The remaining 30 percent is those people who still insist on having a physical ID.

And that’s – that kind of thinking, I guess, will eventually change. It’s a generational thing, it really is. And you still pull your wallet out and want to show your ID.

But now – the younger generation are… Well, from millennials onwards, are finding it much, much easier to adapt to that and find – and prefer it. And so these are the kinds of things that we are trying to do.

On the ease of doing business, again, it’s the bureaucracy that gets in the way. And the necessity for having all these forms. You know ,you wait in line for two hours, three hours. You know, this is your days gone.

You wait for two, three hours, you get one signature and you say, “Thank you,” and they say,”Okay, now you have to go to the other office, which is across town. “

And then with the wonderful traffic, you know, that takes another hour and a half.

It is across town to get another signature and you get another signature and another signature.

For example, to register a new corporation, we looked it up, and the number of signatures or forms that you have to fill up are just ridiculous, are crazy.

Our model is Singapore. Because in Singapore, all you have – I think it’s two or three documents that you have to go through, and they’re all one office next to the other. And that’s… Vietnam, the same thing. And that’s why they’ve become so successful.

Vietnam, I know businessmen who have opened businesses in Vietnam from the Philippines.

Filipinos who have gone to Vietnam, and they say, “You know, we had just dinner with the minister, and the next day we woke up, all the papers were there, we just had to sign, we signed them, we came home, finished.” And that’s what we are aspiring to do.

And that’s what… But there is much to unravel, and there is much to undo.

Much of the problem comes from, shall we say, a tendency by our legislators to have knee-jerk reactions to things.

So, when there – a problem arises, they immediately say, “Okay, we’ll put another level of tests, of checks and balances.” And sometimes the checks and balances are lying on top one another, and they are often, in fact, contradictory.

And that is why – and now the bureaucrat, the civil servant, is hesitant to actually just go and just do it and get it done because if you really look hard enough, you will find that they have violated something somewhere.

Some little rule that nobody really pays any attention to, that has no use whatsoever, that has never been invoked, but they are worried.

And so this kind of attitude, this kind of atmosphere needs to change that the best way is the quickest way and the most efficient way.

It is not the way that will avoid any trouble because we will not – that is not what government is about. We’re not about – we’re not here to find fault.

If, for example, you make a mistake, I’m not going to file an administrative case against you. I’m going to go there and help you and say, “Why did this – why was this a problem? And what can we do to make it better?”

And that’s what we are trying to do with government.

But – and I think in the 10 kilometers that we’re waiting, maybe we’re about kilometer 8 now, so we’re moving, but it’s coming along, but much, much, much more slowly than we would like for it to be.

MR. HIZON: Definitely. We would like it much faster to attract new foreign investors into the country.

Is this red tape, Mr. President, in this bureaucracy also the cause of why we have fallen even below Vietnam in terms of attracting FDIs?

In 2024 alone, there was $230 billion worth of investments in ASEAN. And in the Philippines, we just attracted 10 billion dollars. Is it because of the red tape? Is it the bureaucracy? Because when there’s a bureaucracy and things are not digitalized, right? Mr. President, things fall through the cracks.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

MR. HIZON: It’s all about corruption.

THE PRESIDENT: And there’s that too. That doesn’t help. We have developed a very strange system in the Philippines where you have fixers. Where instead of waiting for two to three hours in line and going from one office to another and wasting three days of your life trying to get this simple permit, you know, to open a business or some such thing, they have somebody who will sidle up to you and say, you know, you give me x amount and I’ll fix it.

And they’re in cahoots with the bureaucrat, with the civil servant. They say, okay, then they’ll go there and they say, come on, you rush this one. They rush it, they pay their money, they split the money between the fixer and the guy at the desk. And that’s what we want to completely remove.

And again, digitalization is going to be the key for us because there is no, we are trying to remove in these processes, we are trying to remove as much discretion on the civil servant as possible for two reasons.

Number one, of course it will make things quicker, it will make things easier. Number two, it will remove that fear from civil servants that they had made a mistake, an honest mistake.

And so they are no longer as hesitant because we didn’t say yes or no at any point, we just processed a piece of paper and we did exactly as the – as the rules say or no physical contact, no person-to-person contact at all.

And people will fill out the form or fill out the forms necessary. We minimize as well those forms and they will get – they get it is what they want, a business permit, a license, whatever it is that they need from government and it needn’t be a hard copy, a piece of paper, it can be in the computer that if they choose to they can print out or they keep it on their phone and just as many people have been doing already. Just present it wherever it’s needed.

MR. HIZON: So, Mr. President, can we expect a full digitalization of government services by the end of your term?

THE PRESIDENT: Full digitalization?

MR. HIZON: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Certain agencies, certainly. We have prioritized, especially in the health sector. We… That’s been the number one priority because that has been, you know, what happens is that when you ask for assistance from government, the assistance is forthcoming. But the process takes so long that it becomes too late.

And the person that’s waiting for, died already or it just didn’t bother anymore or sometimes just didn’t bother going anymore and just got sick and tried to get well at home and that’s a tragedy. So, health systems are number one.

In government functions, all of these things like simple permits, IDs, renewing driver’s licenses, and even on a larger scale for the big corporations, again, the forms that are required to put up a corporation, to enter into a contract with the government, or with another commercial entity, all of these things, we look to digitalization to help.

And that goes right back to the ease of doing business and make it – just make it easier for people to come and should they decide to invest in the Philippines, then make it easy for them.

Now, the other part of the answer to your question about why we in terms of FDI, we have fallen behind is also because what the other element of this that I said was vision.

We haven’t really given a road map to our prospective investors about what the Philippines wants to do. Where are the areas do you want to go into? Electric vehicle manufacturing.

Do you want to go into mining? Do you want to go into batteries? Do you want to… What is it that the Philippines is going to spend money on? Where is the public expenditure going and why there?

And once you are making that clear to investors, there will be investors who will say, we should be part of that. We will make money doing that in the Philippines.

And then coupled, hopefully, with an ease of doing business, then that will make us more attractive to all our different partners and trade partners around the world.

MR: HIZON: I think, Mr. President, for many investors who are also here in this room, what they really want is the sustainability of policies from one administration to another because there is no consistency, you know.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

MR: HIZON: One administration imposes this type of policies in your administration. And you have done a lot, Mr. President, in terms of the Green Lanes, the Create More Act.

I mean, you’ve done a lot for a – to be able to make foreign investors come into the country. But I mean, you have basically two years left. So, it is important that the next administration follows what you’ve already started.

THE PRESIDENT: And that is why we have to be very, very – that people have to understand very, very well what it is that we are trying to do and what the benefits of what we are trying to do is we’ve entered now into an entirely different arena but the political stability is certainly something that is very, very important.

There may be less now, but of course in our history, there has been that element of small town politics where it really from, you know, you’re in a little town, you are running to be mayor and you’re campaigning against let’s say the incumbent or whoever, the incumbent.

And you know, you’re criticizing the incumbent and saying you know what they’re doing they don’t know what they’re doing, they’re this, they’re that, they’re that, and they win.

And therefore, by necessity, then they have to say everything my opponent did was wrong. So, those – all their projects stopped. “Stop. I have a better idea. I have a better idea.”

It’s halfway done. The schoolroom is halfway done. All you have to do is put a roof on it. Why don’t you just do that? You know, then we’ll have a new schoolhouse. But no, that’s a …And that has filtered up to even the national – at the national where whoever went before me, who I oppose, and we have only – the presidents only get one term, so you will always be opposing the incumbent.

So, you have to show that everything that this person did in the past was wrong. And that you criticize and criticize and criticize.

The wonderful thing about being in the opposition is you don’t actually have to get anything to work.

All you have to do is criticize. All you have to do is pull your opponent down. And that’s the problem that we face. We have to really educate people into what we are trying to do. I’m not here to – I’m not president, you know, to, I don’t know, to show off or to whatever, to help certain parts of the economy or friends or relatives.

That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to do these structural changes so that the Philippines becomes more investment-friendly.

And we are starting to feel the effects of that, the beneficial effects of that.

And then you are able to say, do you want to stop those beneficial things? Because my… If we do not elect a like-minded president in 2028, all of these will just go by the wayside.

Now one of the things we have – we have tried to do to make it – make that – those systems more robust is to make them as widespread as possible, number one.

And then I’m talking about things like education, healthcare, social benefits. Make them so widespread that people immediately feel the benefits and therefore, they will refuse to allow any future leader to stop those beneficial effects.

However, when it comes to the economy, that is much more difficult because how many economies are there?

There’s less than 0.01 percent of the populace are actual economists who look at number, who look at the inflation rate, who look at the core inflation, the inflation coming from food products, the inflation coming from fuel, and try to analyze GDP growth, the ratio between debt and the GDP. All of these things. Who looks at that? No one. Very few people. Maybe us, people in this room. Those are the people that look at it. So it’s harder to explain.

And the only way really to, shall we say, sell your policies is to make people feel the effects of those policies. And that is the short of changing the electoral system.

But I think those of you who live here in the Philippines have seen the difficulties that arise when the Constitution is being questioned and that there are suggestions to amend the Constitution. And so these are the difficulties that we find.

But as long as we are able to show that these policies and these measures that we have undertaken are of benefit, and we can – then people will say, well, if they are.. I feel the benefit, my life is just that much better because of these things, then I want to keep it.

And that’s the best way that you can do that.

The other way that we’ve tried to do it is to enshrine them in law, and that’s much more difficult to change.

So, we… Some of these policies are enshrined. The Create More, the one that you mentioned. Create More is the amendment that we have to the old Create Act. which is a – which was an act which was to provide incentives for investors both on the plus side, incentives in actual tax breaks and things like that and in sanctions for people who do not follow the rules and we have actually – we enlarged it. That’s why it has now become – it has now come to be called the Create More because there are now more incentives because there are industries that didn’t exist when that law was written that now are very, very attractive.

And I think everyone understands it is in the – they mostly belong in the digital world, but then there’s also mining, which is a traditional industry in the Philippines which we have not taken full advantage of.

And that will provide a better… But it’s a mix, actually, of incentives and also part – the other element of it is to ease of doing business.

The law also circumscribes certain areas where, like you say, there’s a green lane where we can get around the bureaucracy. We work – there’s a workaround on the bureaucracy. We specify certain areas where we are particularly interested, and we make it easier for investors to go into those areas. Agriculture, again, education, healthcare, mining, and many, many, many others.

Actually, I made some notes here. There’s a very long list, and I don’t want to give you an incomplete list, but there is a great deal that we have identified. We have identified, I think, about 19 areas that are going to be the priority, and those priorities will be the ones that we will assist in every way that government can, and not only government.

One of the main changes that we have made is to recognize and to immediately say, day one, that I came into office, I said, we recognize the private sector as a full and important partner in economic development.

Government does many things, but private sector does other things much better than government. Once you recognize that and you engage them, then it becomes much easier.

As a matter of fact, to…There’s a lot here. So, [unclear] from talking.

MR. HIZON: Mr. President, I hope you don’t mind if I interject.

THE PRESIDENT: No, I’m not – please do. Please do. You – [unclear] get me started, we’ll be here all day.

MR: HIZON: Okay, you talk about structural changes. You’ve made quite number of them during your – the past four years of your administration, eonomic and reform policies.

So, what we need right now is consistency that the next President, the next leaders of our country continue what you’ve already started. So what kind of leader? Who should we vote for in 2028 who will continue what you’ve already started? Maybe you can give us a hint, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, number one, somebody who understands economics.

MR: HIZON: Understands economics, okay.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s the first thing. That’s the life of the person who understands how to create jobs, who understands how to keep the inflation rate down, who understands how to make food supply a given, something that you can assume.

So – and somebody who thinks about productivity, because growth is about productivity.

How do you make your working population more productive? How do you support them so they work better? How do you fix the education system so they’re better trained? How do you make sure that they’re healthier? How do you make sure that they don’t worry about food? Those are the kind of people that you need – that we need –- are the people who actually are thinking about not politics, but how to make the country better.

I’ve always said very early on again, even before I became president, I always was watching and I said when I was walking around and being around my father, all I – all we would hear is we are building a nation. We are about nation-building. I didn’t hear that anymore.

So, we need to have nation builders, people who want to make the Philippines better. People who actually love the Philippines and love Filipinos and want to make things better.

And that’s – it boils down to – it might sound a little sentimental or emotional, but that’s what you need.

And of course, there has to be the element of competency. You know, love is not – it goes a long way, but it’s not enough. You also have to know how to do it. You have to have some training. Or at the very least, you have to listen to people who have that training. And I’m proud to say we have in government, we have a thing called the Private Sector Advisory Council.

And the Private Sector Advisory Council, we meet more or less once a week. And the businessmen who are here know that because we see each other fairly often. And they sit down, and we divide it up into different elements: to education, to health care, jobs, technology, et cetera, et cetera.

And they – we get the best of them, and they sit down, and we basically, government sits there and listens and asks them, what is it you need from us? That’s how it started.

Now, it’s now, we government, we on this side of the table, are… They come in and they say, “Have you done your homework?” You know, we talked – the last week, or “The last meeting that we had, we were saying that we’re going to do this, this, this, have you done it? Or haven’t you? And why haven’t you? And what’s the problem?”

And it’s a – it’s a, it’s a very, how do you say, there’s a great synergy that comes from that. And it’s not to lay blame and say, “You’re messing up, you know, you’re bad, you’re doing this, et cetera. You’re not smart enough.” It’s not about that. It’s about getting together and say, “Okay, this worked. Let’s do that more. This worked. Okay, how do we make it better? This just didn’t work.” And then you have to decide, “Well, maybe it was just a bad idea, so let’s do something else. Let’s not waste our time. Or we have to do it. It’s too important. We have to fix that problem.”

And that has been so helpful in giving us direction on how government should work because what we are trying to attract is business. Of course, there’s the social side to government.

But the big — a big side, we cannot afford the social side if we’re not doing well on the business side, on the commercial, on the private, on the revenue side, let’s just put it that way.

There are two sides to every balance sheet. So, we have to do well on both sides. And that’s what the PSAC, what we can call it the PSAC, has become a very important part of, but it all derives, it all filters down, distills from that very clear understanding that the private sector needs to be a full partner in economic development.

MR. HIZON: So, Mr. President, this is just – this will just be a very short answer that I’m expecting from you.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay.

MR. HIZON: With the characteristics that you’ve mentioned on who should be the next president in 2028, have you already narrowed it down to about two or three?

THE PRESIDENT: You’re going to get me into trouble.

[laughter]

Well, certainly there are…

MR. HIZON: He’s going to answer it.

THE PRESIDENT: Of course, I’m going to answer it. They – the… Well, we have some people that we are talking to in mind. Many of them actually… Some of them… “No, I’m not…”

MR. HIZON: From the Cabinet?

THE PRESIDENT: From? Huh? I’m sorry?

[laughter]

MR. HIZON: Are they from the Cabinet? Are they local officials? Are they from the Senate or Congress?

THE PRESIDENT: Your – Just like a Lasallite. You know, you’re not —

MR. HIZON: As you can see, Mr. President, I love your socks. It’s green because we’re both from LaSalle, but I’m wearing the flag colors.

THE PRESIDENT: We’re both schoolmates. And…But he was much older than I was.

Way, way, way ahead. Yes, but of course you have to – you know, when people are working, you cannot limit yourself to government.

MR. HIZON: Yeah.

THE PRESIDENT: But of course, it’s much harder to bring to a presidential level someone who has not been involved in politics ever. It happens, but it’s not that easy, especially in the highly political atmosphere that we have here in the Philippines.

Kung…It’s not that they don’t like the person, they just know who – they don’t know who they are. And to build that up to a presidential level is quite difficult.

So, you look at people in government and you see who is doing well, who is doing – who is exceptional. And we have, I’m glad to say, exceptional people in government.

MR. HIZON: And you will endorse this person very soon? Not soon.

THE PRESIDENT: Not soon.

[laughter]

Not soon. The timing is everything.

MR. HIZON: Okay. We should be talking about ASEAN and the Philippine economy, not about politics. So, okay, Mr. President, I mean, you’ve already instituted a lot of these economic reforms. I mean, we’ve seen the economy grow from 2022 up until 2025.

Unfortunately, we saw a setback in the third quarter where we saw the economy expand by just 3.9 percent.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s right.

MR. HIZON: And in the fourth quarter by 3 percent.

Is this a concern for you? And of course, this was also impacted by infrastructure spending because of the flood control anomalies.

THE PRESIDENT: The flood control problem, scandal, whatever you want to call it, has certainly played a very large part in that. And I – unfortunately, it had to be done.

It is one of those things where you just have to rip the band-aid off. There was no easy way to do it.

And otherwise, then the old practices, if we didn’t – it wasn’t done, the old practices would continue and the Philippines would flatline. And that would be – that would be…While everyone else is exponential growth, we are flat, we are flat and we get nowhere.

And so that – that’s why it had to be done. I knew going in that it would be painful but nothing big and important is not painful.

And there are many people who resist just because they are contrary, contrarians and there are people who resist because they are afraid.

They say we cannot change because this is how we’ve always done it. They’re very conservative and you know, you can’t fault them for that. But that – then that is what we had to face.

However, you must also consider that they – to know small part to the economic shocks that came in in the last part of last year, the weather, the climate change, what happened in climate change, the – what happened – the amount of money that we are spending to try and, well, first of all, help the victims of climate change and to now do the adjustment to climate change, i.e. moving settlements away from the areas that have suffered because of climate change.

I remember when I was governor, and I was governor from ‘98 to 2007.

When they said that a storm would come in, we knew what to do. We knew where the water – where it was going to flood. We knew what [unclear] would be isolated. We knew where to go. We had a very good idea of what was going to happen. That’s no longer the case.

Even if you look at the patterns of our weather, before it was very clear it would come into Bicol, Region 5, and would go up and come out of the Ilocos Norte, usually in Region 1, up north. That’s no longer the case.

Mindanao has always been seen. There are no typhoons in Mindanao. Now there are. Maybe one or two only a year, but there are typhoons in Mindanao. And so, that has been a really – and this is – it impacts us in many ways. Not only in the fact that, you know, you can imagine how heartbreaking it is for someone who has worked very hard to build this bypass road, the five kilometer bypass road. And six months later, it’s completely destroyed because the storm came in and destroyed it.

And you were sure that we built this road in the right place because typhoons never passed there and it did and it destroyed the road.

And that’s the kind of thing that we have to be dealing with. So, we have to be much smarter about the way we do things and but – that has been an impact as well.

Then the war in Ukraine has had an element and when Russia first entered – enter the Ukraine, the initial – the initial reaction was about you know, it shouldn’t affect us because we are very far away but of course we import wheat from both Russia and Ukraine.

So, the prices of food went up like this and we had to find alternative sources to at the… And of course, it was a sellers market because the supply coming out of those two countries was quite large.

So, it’s a sellers market, you have to pay a higher price and these had that – you had those effects.

Again, with – and then Gaza, you would think, well, they’re not oil producing countries so it shouldn’t really bother our fuel prices, but it did anyway because there were threats to the straits of Hormuz, the tankers were hesitant to go in, that sort of thing, so it still became.

So, it’s uncertainty that we are fighting with. Uncertainty about climate change, uncertainty about supply chains, uncertainty about geopolitical concerns, about war, about peace. It’s uncertainty that we are trying to mitigate.

And we do that by, I suppose, like anything, by broadening our base, i.e., again, talking to what we have come to describe as non-traditional trade partners so that the economy is much less prone to shifts and shocks that come from the outside over which we have no control.

MR. HIZON: It is indeed a confluence of factors both internationally and locally that has impacted the Philippines’ GDP growth in the second half of next year.

I was talking to some businessmen here, Mr. President. One was a foreign investor, and he said, my concern is about the ease of doing business.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

MR. HIZON: And that you have answered. And the local businessman that I spoke to here told me, I’m concerned about who’s going to be jailed next.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. That’s perfectly…

MR. HIZON: Will there be more people behind bars?

THE PRESIDENT: That’s a…

MR. HIZON: Because we’ve been waiting for this, Mr. President, since last year.

THE PRESIDENT: I don’t think that putting people behind bars, of course, you put people who have been shown to have taken, who have abused the privilege, the authorities and have taken money that does not belong to them, that belongs to the people, behind bars. But the system needs to change.

MR. HIZON: The culture.

THE PRESIDENT: And that is why we had to do that. I always say, why is it that Filipinos, when they are abroad, do so well? Because the rules are clear. You know, you work hard, you get a little lucky, you’ll be fine.

I’ll tell you one of the stories that has stuck in my mind. I was driving along Camp John Hay when it was still under American administration.

I was literally driving along. In front of me was a car with a guy who was eating a hamburger. Okay, and he finished eating his hamburger, and he rolled up the trash.

And he put his hand outside the window. He didn’t let go of the trash until he left the gate of John Hay, and then he threw the trash, because he could do it.

In John Hay, the base police would have come running after him and said you can’t do that you pay a fine you know, you’ll have to pay for your for your mistake.

And that’s… You have to make the rules clear. You have to make – you cannot – and there has to be sanctioned when you get it wrong or when you steal or when you do something wrong, abuse your power, abuse your authority, you have to pay the price. And that’s what we have to establish.

And that goes back now to the strength of institutions and that is the hardest part for a young democracy like the Philippines to develop.

MR. HIZON: So we’re going to see Mr. President more incumbents in jail sooner rather than later?

THE PRESIDENT: Well you’ll have to ask…You know most of that now are with the Department of Justice and with our Ombudsman so I think they will have a better idea of where that’s going.

I’m worried about so many other things right now and I have confidence that the DOJ and the Ombudsman will do what needs to be done.

MR. HIZON: Focusing now on ASEAN, Mr. President, the Philippines is Chair, and the theme is navigating our future. From your [unclear], what does “together” mean in terms of practical economic terms?

THE PRESIDENT: Alright, well, it’s rooted in the recognition, the understanding, and the commitment to ASEAN centrality. And that is very, very important. That we have to work in many ways, we must work as one. I think we share the aspiration, all member states share the aspiration that ASEAN should return to its old role of being an economic – a global economic driver.

That happened in 2019, that’s where we were and we need to return to that.

However, “ together” does not mean that we all do things the same way.

We all have different conditions. We all are economically different. Just population. Just look at our populations. Our populations are so different. The only thing that perhaps we have in common is that we’re maritime countries, except for Laos PDR.

And so that, that joint and shared aspiration of returning to that role in the global community is something that we have – we hold to – in our hearts together.

Even achieving that will be done in many different ways depending on which country you are talking about.

But we have to do it in consonance with one another so that we achieve our own national goals and at the same time achieve the goals that we have for ASEAN and that means that, that again, we must work together and that’s why “together”.

MR: HIZON: Final question, Mr. President. What concrete policy reforms would the Philippines like to see in basically as it becomes the Chair of ASEAN in 2026. What concrete policy reforms?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, in…Very soon after COVID, the discussion around ASEAN was that we have to learn from the lessons of COVID.

One of the great lessons that we had to do was to make more robust our supply chains. And that’s what we were going about and we were sup… Our supply chains to our our trade partners around the world.

And with all the things that have happened, the effort to make those supply chains more robust and stronger have really run into great obstacles.

And so there has been a joint understanding between member states, let’s do it ourselves first. And so, the supply chains within ASEAN should be strengthened.

The way we do business with one another should be strengthened. I came upon a statistic where the business, the commerce, the trade that ASEAN does is only 23 percent. I think that’s the number, about 23 percent intra-trade.

The rest of the 77 percent is outside of ASEAN, countries going outside of ASEAN.

If we could develop that intra-trade within ASEAN. I think that would serve a great, great purpose.

And we’re moving in that direction. We talk now about the common grid, the common ASEAN grid. We are trying – we are slowly coordinating our different agencies so that, for example, procedures for importation is pretty much standardized, that we understand how each country does business and how to deal with them. We understand how – what the laws are, and we understand what part each country will play was we try to achieve what we aspire for, which is to return as a global force in the global economy.

— END —