Departure statement of PRRD for Official Visit to the Republic Of Korea

The Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea and other members of the Cabinet who are here with us today --- tonight; former Senate President and my Speaker Manny Villar; other members of the House of Representatives; the Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Carlito Galvez Jr. and the other members of the service commanders; fellow workers in government; ladies and gentlemen.

I leave tonight for my first Official Visit to the Republic of Korea. I am deeply honored by the invitation of His Excellency, President Moon Jae-in.

The ties between the Philippines and the Republic of Korea are long and deep. Nearly 70 years ago, we stood side by side in defense of freedom and democracy.

Today, we stand shoulder to shoulder in advancing our shared aspirations and in facing threats to our nations, our peoples and in our region.

There is much to learn from South Korea’s experience and expertise. Despite seemingly insurmountable challenges, the Republic of Korea successfully transformed itself into one of the most advanced and progressive economies [in] the world.

As a long-standing partner, the Republic of Korea has already joined the Philippines in our efforts to achieve inclusive and sustainable economic development growth.

Yet, there is much room for even healthier growth across the areas of mutual interests. The Philippines stands ready to write a new chapter of closer ties, deeper amity and more comprehensive collaboration with South Korea.

In my talks with President Moon, I will explore ways to bring cooperation to a whole new level. This will be based on respect for sovereign equality and for the democratic ideals that we both fought hard to secure.

I will emphasize the importance of strengthening our partnership in defense and security, trade and investments, and political cooperation.

I will likewise stress the need to work together to help achieve greater security by addressing conventional and emerging threats to stability in our [region].

I will meet with Korean business leaders and encourage them to be our responsible partners in our pursuit of economic growth. This way, they can actively contribute to our objective of providing a comfortable life for our people. (Friday in Davao City) Am in the midst of a melee at the Philippine Statistics Authority (formerly NSO). There are over 1,000 of us for now queuing at different windows. Am here to secure copies of birth certificates for my family. The PSA staff are doing their darn best to process everybody’s requests and they are quite efficient and courteous. As a senior citizen I am accorded along with the rest of seniors and PWDs some special service of sort.

The Davao processing office recently transferred to a bigger and spacious place, airconditioned, with adequate number of comfortable seats and television monitors to calm your nerves and hungry stomachs.

The number of people that troop here to secure birth and marriage documents makes the job of PSA employees extremely challenging. (As I write this piece, the people who occupy the other half of the room roared as they root for their respective NBA teams. Now and then those watching the funny video clips would chorus in laughter.)

I just finished with the cashier and am told that I have to wait for an hour more to get the certificates that I came for.

Which brings us to a related topic. President Duterte gave a marching order to all government agencies to expedite processing of documents and responding to inquiries and complaints. In this age of cyberspace and internet of things I wonder why we still have to queue and wait for hours to process and secure documents and car plates for several years!. Now that we are about to have a national ID, then maybe among the perks for the NID holders is to enjoy shorter processing time.

I understand that the processing of documents had been franchised to a private firm. Maybe, PSA can authorise local government units to do that after all the data that are kept in its data bank come from the LGUs civil registry. Soon the National Broadband Network of the Department of Information will roll out internet access. Many remote LGUs will be connected to that communications backbone. This will unclog the horrendous crowd at the PSA regional offices.

There ought to be a way to ease traffic in government offices and in the highways.

Just thinking and writing while waiting for my documents. Am not a basketball fan and I cannot laugh with a hungry stomach.