(Speech delivered at the ECOSOC Chamber, UNHQ New York, by H.E. MR. TEODORO L. LOCSIN JR., Philippine Permanent Representative to the United Nations.)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The Philippines has become one of Asia’s best-performing economies, capping 2016 with a GDP growth rate of 6.8%.[1] In the past 15 years, we had the biggest generation of wealth but in the smallest number of hands. Yet no cronyism was involved; no favoritism was extended; and no one was disadvantaged to advantage another. It is just the nature of post-modern economies: to have sudden great wealth in the midst of much the same poverty as before.
Once we spoke of a rising tide raising all boats, big and small. But post-modern economies are swelling tides that raise big boats while swamping far smaller and more boats—anchored to the ocean floor. President Duterte’s 10-point socio-economic agenda and the newest Philippine Development Plan addresses this anomalous development which will worsen with more growth generating fewer jobs.
He is focused on achieving inclusive growth to create a high-trust society, resilient in change and cooperative before challenges: a globally competitive knowledge economy drawing on the educated strengths of as many as possible; so all may advance on a common front of equitably shared progress—and prosperity we hope.
Our target is to reduce poverty incidence from 21.6% to 14% by 2022. This should lift six million people from poverty by creating more and better paying jobs in city and countryside, encouraging innovation and enterprise; pulling people together behind their freely elected governments rather than tearing them apart on the streets.
Reducing criminality and illegal drugs is a top and never to be compromised priority that firmly excludes; making legal what is criminal, accepting as right what is profoundly wrong, living with the problem rather than solving it by recklessly regarding as mere lifestyle what destroys life.
Addressing poverty will entail:
Investment in human capital by better education; making people more adaptable as ways of making wealth or just making do change quickly with technologies and the times;
Investment in infrastructure; for sound urban development for economies of scale—why cities always have the lead; as well as for countryside development now that workplaces have spilled out of factories and offices.
And finally inclusive financing: that as many might be entrepreneurs as hard work, skill, and luck allow, so each may live and work with a sense of personal fulfillment. For all progress must be about people and not governments, communities not states: all on one globe—so that what goes around comes around to everyone else—be it unsustainable progress because of pollution and waste or what we all hope to achieve: one sustainable planet for everyone, every part of it congenial to the present and to coming generations. For people build for tomorrow: their own and posterity’s. Or they would cover themselves with just a blanket of leaves rather than a roof over their heads.
Mr. Chair.
Poverty eradication is the overarching goal of our own and the 2030 Agenda. The Philippines remains committed to this goal, recognizing the centrality of persons as the only purpose of progress, offering the only possibility of sustainable development. Thank you.
[1] https://psa.gov.ph/content/philippine-economy-posts-66-percent-gdp-growth-fourth-quarter-2016-68-percent-2016