A wide horizon to cover

ONCE in flight, there is no stopping you from having to keep going and to do as much good as possible, from having to attend to the duties of your position.

Even while your duties were limited to those of rehabilitating and strengthening DBP as a development institution, actual facts on the ground required you to do so much else: the country had enormous economic problems to confront, and the “economics team” of the Cabinet were in need of every hand they could get. Almost from the start, the actual work you had to carry out was much broader in coverage than your official title as “Chairman and CEO of the Development Bank of the Philippines.”

It came as no real surprise, therefore, that after much of the dirty work of trimming down the organization – aligning its reduced scale with the new strategy map for DBP – new horizons for public service opened up. The financial re- structuring did not take much time; but the embedding of a new corporate culture and the installation of a new economic and financial discipline were much more absorbing, especially since the campaign for values was also pitched to the general public. But after 3 solid years of work, embellished with prayer and selfless sacrifice, you could say from deep within you, “the task is done; the rehabilitation work has succeeded, beyond our initial wildest dreams.”

A new assignment came, and this was to formally join the Cabinet as the Secretary for Economic Planning. This meant having to go back to NEDA, an offshoot of the office where you started your professional career after coming home from graduate studies in the US. Many of the faces were familiar; and the work involved all the issues with which CRC grappled from outside government. For at least a short “shining moment,” you enjoyed the luxury of a duck naturally “swimming in water.” The moment did not last very long, but while it lasted, it gave you the opportunity to open much more widely the economic horizons for the Philippines: instead of remaining insular in its orientation and economic pre- occupation, it could open itself much wider to the bigger economic region, of which it should be an integral part of.

• Economic liberalization was a natural orientation for the economics team of the Cabinet that took up the mantle of responsibility for the Philippine economy after the dictatorship. You did not play a lead role in the initial economic liberalization program; but you formed part of the bigger team that pushed for it.

• As Economic Planning Secretary, you were sent to be the sole Ministerial representative for the Philippines at the initial meeting where APEC was conceived, formulated, and adopted. You were given the privilege of signing the Philippines into APEC during its inaugural Ministerial meeting in Canberra, Australia in 1989.

• Subsequently, as the head of the Cabinet economics team, you pushed for significantly opening the trade regime of the Philippines not only to ASEAN, but also to the wider APEC region, and through open regionalism to the rest of the world.

In flying higher and into a wider horizon, you met occasional strong crosswinds; you found that the wind was not always behind you. Thus, the struggle had to be fought, often with little more than a string and a prayerful raising of one’s clasped hands into the air. Somehow, your faith always pointed to a father God, who was more than willing to help. He was more than able; and he often delivered outcomes much better than you expected.

The God in whom you professed your faith, however, expected you to do your very best. He expected you to fall back on all the knowledge and experience you have accumulated over the years. Given your background, economic liberalization and opening up the country’s trade and investment regime were a “natural”; but you had to draw deep from your reserves of knowledge and expertise in order to conceive of arguments – presented reasonably, cogently, and understandably – for others –and ultimately for public opinion – to rally behind your proposed “natural” policy option.

With God’s blessing, support you obtained, and rally they eventually did.