President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo expressed satisfaction over the readiness of the police force to address criminality following Monday night’s unscheduled visit to the police substation 1 along Malolos Ave. corner G. de Jesus St. in Barangay Bagong Barrio, Caloocan City.

The President said she wanted to personally inspect members of the police force if the men in uniform were doing their job, that time of the night.

The President arrived at the police station at about 10 p.m. from her Forbes Park, Makati residence, where she had dinner with 2002 bar topnotcher Atty. Arlene Maneja of the University of Santo Tomas.

At the station, the President surprised Inspector Arturo Paras, substation officer-in-charge.

Paras said the substation had only four police personnel in the night shift and 17 police officers during the day.

Substation head Chief Inspector Daniel Mayoni arrived later to brief the President. Mayoni arrived from the Polytechnic College where he is taking up his masteral studies.

In an interview, the President said she came to inspect the substation to see the conditions of the police stations, which covered the second highest crime rate in Metro Manila.

"If you remember the first one I visited, it has the highest crime rate. This one has the second highest crime rate. So the impact, to me, the bottomline is: has the crime rate gone down? What have they done since I told them what they should do? That’s what I’m checking," she said.

Caloocan City police chief Senior Superintendent Berjardi Mantele arrived shortly after the President arrived, and handed to her a briefing paper on the crime statistics and police efforts in the city.

The President expressed surprise with the readiness of Mantele. She asked him if he knew she was coming and Mantele said no.

But Mantele said that after the President visited the police station in Tondo, he made preparations for a surprise visit.

The President inquired on the police efforts against drugs pushers, loose firearms and possible terrorist infiltration in the area.

In his briefing, Mantele bared police efforts to use out-of-school youth as car washers, utility crew and cleaners in the area.

So far, 20 youths have been given jobs by the city and more will soon follow, he added.

Bagong Barrio barangay captain Letty Maturan also gave the President an informal briefing on the peace and order situation in the area.

Maturan said that in cooperation with the police, local officials have instituted a 10 p.m. curfew for those aged 17 years old and below to curb youth and drug-related crimes.

She assured the President that officials and the police would keep track of strangers entering their areas.

Later in the night, Senior Superintendent Marcelino Franco, district director of the Northern Police District, also arrived.

The President said that earlier in the day, she went to a barangay in Makati and was able to talk with the barangay captain.

"I asked her: Has the station chief started to work out a formal arrangement with you and your barangay tanods? And she said yes. At least, that means they’re complying with my instructions," she said.

The President also indicated that she might not undertake surprise visits to police stations anymore.

"I do my job as I see the need. I don’t know. Maybe at the most, one more," she said.

Law and Order

The military and police shall continue to enforce our laws, secure the civilian population, keep the highways of commerce open, and check movements of armed groups posing a direct threat to peace and order. The AFP shall maintain a posture of active defense.

Peace Initiatives

But our end objective will be peace. Without peace, there can be no development. The President wants a two-tiered peace approach. At the national level, negotiations shall be pursued with the facilitation and assistance of third party nations in order to achieve a comprehensive and durable settlement of the conflict in line with Constitution. Malaysia, even Libya and Bahrain, would like to pitch in.

The President is also encouraging local government executives to conduct their own peace initiatives at the LGU level. Local peace talks are a way of bringing the scattered MILF militias that have lost faith in their leaders, back to the community. Several initiatives are already underway. The government shall welcome back those who renounce armed struggle, disarm and are willing rejoin the mainstream.

As we speak, religious leaders are meeting in Mindanao today at the urging of the President. It is important to stress, through the religious forum, that the AFP-police operations have nothing to do with religion. It has everything to do with law and order.

This is no time for political grandstanding. We ask our political leaders to pull with the government in the same direction – peace, development and justice.

Budget

We thank Congress for passing the budget after a careful and review. Essential services will be given utmost priority as we strive to build up the strength of our economy to meet crisis in several fronts.

IRAQ Situation

In compliance with the directive of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has declared micro-finance as its flagship program for poverty alleviation and has undertaken specific measures in promoting the program within the banking sector.

In a report, the BSP said that it has also achieved significant gains in training and capacity building for the micro-finance program within the BSP.

The BSP said their efforts have shown remarkable results. To date, there are two micro-finance oriented rural banks, namely Vision and Banco ng Masa, and two micro-finance oriented thrift banks, Opportunity Bank and Microenterprise Bank, both created under Circular 273, with 100 percent micro-finance portfolios.

In addition, the BSP said, there are now 27 cooperative rural banks and 85 rural banks throughout the country that have micro-finance operations.

These banks are currently reaching over 300,000 micro-finance clients, the BSP said, adding that more formal financial institutions are moving to engage in micro-finance while informal, and unregulated institutions are moving toward formalization and venturing into activities that they did not previously undertake such as deposit taking and savings mobilization.

On training, the BSP conducted another micro-finance seminar in La Union last March 10, 2003.

The La Union seminar was part of the BSP micro-finance regional advocacy program, which was launched last January in Cebu City.

The regional advocacy program is a series of information seminars that will be held in the strategic regions of the country to promote the development of sustainable micro-finance.

According to the BSP, the end goal of this program is to catalyze the development of sustainable micro-finance institutions in the country to be able to reach a larger number of entrepreneurial poor.

Earlier, National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) Lead Convenor Teresita Deles reported to the President that some 600,000 poor women have availed themselves of the small loan program in 2002.

This represented an increase of 160 percent from the 372,349 women-borrowers registered in 2001, Deles said.

A technology transfer program that would respond to the needs of small and medium enterprises was presented today by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the National Economic and Development Authority.

Dubbed Small Enterprise Technology Upgrading Program or SETUP, the program is aimed at strengthening the SMEs, one of the first items in the President’s eight-point agenda.

DOST Secretary Estrella Alabastro said the program integrates all the efforts of the department’s agencies and responds to certain articulated needs of small enterprises.

"This is really a response to the President’s call that we should refocus our efforts on SMEs," Alabastro said during a press briefing that followed the NEDA board executive meeting in Malacanang.

Alabastro enumerated five areas considered critical in the performance of the SME sector. These are appropriate technologies, technical manpower training, need for information, product standards and testing facilities and appropriate packaging.

She said the DOST is implementing the program through its regional offices.

The allotted DOST budget for the program for 2003 is more than P100 million. They spent P100 million for this program last year.

"What we are doing now is we are linking up with other government financial institutions and seeing what additional funds can be accessed," she added.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri today said that the report of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) that the Philippines was the worst performer among the ASEAN nations on ADB-funded projects is more of a historical account rather than an indictment of the present administration.

In a press statement he issued in a briefing in Malacanang this afternoon, Neri said that most of the unsuccessful projects cited by the ADB were completed before the end of the l980s.

This involved some 36 completed projects, which were mostly approved before l986, Neri said.

In a report, the ADB said that it had lent the Philippines a total of $5.9 billion for 86 projects during the l986-2001 review period and out of this number, only 36 were completed.

ADB country director Thomas Crouch said that the Philippine performance "comes out rather less" than its neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Neri, who is also the director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), said that the problem projects were mostly in agriculture and in the natural resources sector.

He said that the ADB report had acknowledged that there have been signs of improvement in the l990s.

According to Neri, the assessment of the ADB showed that as of December 2001, none of the 45 ongoing projects funded by the ADB would likely be unsatisfactory.

Neri said that the government has actually sought these types of feedback and evaluation from the ADB so that it can get lessons from its past performance.

"So, I’m happy that this project evaluation has come out, because it will serve as information for us on how we can improve future projects and how to avoid mistakes that had been done way back in the past," Neri said.