Ramos: Unity, Solidarity, and Teamwork

President Fidel V. Ramos set out and succeeded in mobilizing the powers of the presidency of the Philippines to buttress the return to democratic institutions. He articulated his policy and program agenda in his first State of the Nation Address in 1992, in a formula he entitled “Philippines 2000.” This section provides substantial detail on this immense plan structured to interconnect the work of all line agencies to produce a conceptually cohesive and hence efficiently actionable six-year reform trajectory. Driving this trajectory was President Ramos’ determination to reinforce democratic reform with a robustly growing economy. Institutionalizing people power by installing consensus-building mechanisms in all programmatic work in governance and in public-private collaborations, he was equally steadfast about his sales missions abroad. Through aggressive revenue generation (such as privatization), pumping up efficiency levels in the bureaucracy, and the creation of economic zones, he found the financial resources to attend to urgent challenges at the commencement of his tenure (such as an immense power crisis) and to long-term problems (notably, the income disparity).  His call for unity, solidarity, and teamwork pushed economic growth as much as social reform initiatives: the peace agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front, owed to a whole-of-nation approach that understood the deep-rooted reasons for the insurgencies; and, poverty-alleviation and civilian participation in arriving at a hiatus in the war in the south.