Sunday, January 07, 2007 Arroyo to people: Ignore opposition ‘jabbing, shadowboxing’
CLAIMING she will involve herself only with the “welfare of the people,” President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo urged people not to be distracted by the “jabbing and shadow-boxing” of her political opponents.
Speaking at the inauguration of the reconstructed Dumalandan Bridge in Pangasinan, Arroyo said 2007 is off to a good start despite “political noise” accompanying the midterm elections.
“Our politics is the welfare of the people. Do not be distracted by the jabbing and shadowboxing of the other side,” she said as officials led by House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., a native of Pangasinan, tried to get the crowd to applaud.
Arroyo also took a dig at a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey that showed 52 percent of Filipinos rate themselves poor saying it was not objective.
She said economic indicators indicate the country is “off to a good start,” and that she is confident 2007 will be the year “it all comes together.”
“Imagine, we thought our budget deficit would be P120 billion in 2006, it’s P80 billion. Our inflation rate is at its lowest in the last three years, and our foreign exchange reserves US$23 billion, the highest in history,” she said.
On the other hand, she said the “political noise” that accompanies the election period had not affected economic growth, she said.
“More Filipinos are converging their talents and energies in moving the economy to greater heights even as we face the usual political noise attendant to midterm elections. But they don’t threaten at all the established growth curve of the economy that we did through difficult reforms we made over the last six years,” she said.
As for the SWS survey on self-rated poverty, she said in the first six years after she was catapulted to power in 2001, the average self-rated poverty was 63 percent but in the last survey it was “down” to 51 percent.
She then cited “objective” government data that in 2000, 28 percent of the population was below the poverty line but now it was “down” to 24 percent.
“When you say self-rated, usually you are more pessimistic than the objective measures,” she said.
Arroyo said the reconstructed bridge is part of the government’s “mega super projects” for the super-regions she established in her State of the Nation Address last year.
The Dumalandan Bridge was damaged due to typhoons in 1998 and was washed out in 1999 due to floods. Government-run radio station dzRB said its reconstruction started on Jan. 29, 2001.
The same government-run radio also said the bridge, which links Pangasinan to other Central Luzon provinces like Zambales, was completed ahead of time, as its scheduled completion was on March 8 yet. (JMR/Sunnex)
