Noting the Philippines’ favorable business climate, two of China’s top corporations pledged today to invest and take advantage of the diverse investment opportunities in the country.

Officials of Pioneer Metals Group of Companies based in China and Hong Kong and ZTE Corporation, China's largest listed telecommunications equipment provider, told President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in separate calls in Malacaņang of their intentions to invest here, further boosting the Philippines’ image as the next best foreign investment destination in Southeast Asia.

Diana Chen, president and chairman of the Pioneer Metals Group, and her assistant chairman Pi Li Xiang said they are looking for possible ventures in mining, banking and finance, shipyard building and hotels.

The President reacted favorably to Chen’s intentions and advised her to immediately coordinate with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Pioneer Metals Group (PMG) of Companies is a subsidiary of Pioneer Metals Holdings (PMH), a Hong Kong-based company founded in 1995.

Through nearly one decade of development, PMG, as an international group has established more than a dozen fully owned or holding subsidiaries. Its businesses involve resources, steel, trade, logistics, real estate and financial services. It has branches in Beijing, Qingdao, Shanghai, Wuhan, America, Australia, India and Brazil with the core company in Hong Kong and Beijing.

As the flagship of the holding company, Pioneer Metals Company (PMC) has focused on the development of global resources, and promotes the balanced global flow of scarce resources through investment and trade.

Hou Weigui, president of ZTE Corporation, said his company is planning to put up a "National Broadband Network" through the establishment of a single platform broadband network for government use.

Through this network, linking different government agencies and bringing their services to the people through the internet would be greatly enhanced.

After declaring earlier that "2007 will be the year it will all come together for the Philippines," President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said today the Filipino people would finally reap the benefits of good fiscal position and a growing economy.

In a roundtable discussion this afternoon in Malacaņang, the President said the people would now "feel the benefits of a declining National Government (NG) total debt and of a growing economy" as the government has more funds to spend on enhanced social services and vital infrastructure projects, among others.

The President noted that the decline in the NG total debt from P3.888 trillion in 2005 to P3.851 trillion last year resulted to a reduction in the NG debt-to-gross national product (GDP) ratio to 64 percent from 72 percent in 2005.

"This is why we have savings that would be spent on social services, education, health, housing for the people," the President said.

According to National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Director General and Socioeconomic Secretary Romulo Neri, the government has more funds now to spend for more productive expenditures that would uplift the lives of the people.

Among the areas where the government would invest heavily this year until 2008 are on power, education, health, food and potable water.

On power, the President cited the move of the state-owned National Power Corporation (Napocor) to file an application with the Energy Regulatory Commission to reduce its generation rate adjustment mechanism and currency exchange rate adjustment covering 2005 and 2006.

If the application would be granted, power rates would be reduced, thus there is no other way for the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) but lower the rates of electricity it supplies to households, Napocor president Cyril del Callar said.

Press Secretary and Presidential Spokesperson Ignacio R. Bunye said Napocor’s move was the result of the peso’s strengthening and the government "will exhaust all means to deliver the payback of a strong peso to the consumers."

"Lower power rates are a benchmark of socioeconomic stability and we look forward to Napocor’s action as a means to keep inflation low and generate more savings for the Filipino family. These are the beneficial trickle-` down effects of a strong peso on the lives of the people," Bunye said.

On education, the Arroyo administration was able to close the classroom gap last year with the construction of a total of 13,242 classrooms, or more than double the 6,000 target classrooms.

This year and in 2008, the administration is focused on further reducing the classroom-to-student ratio with the construction of more classrooms, National Anti-Poverty Commission Chair Domingo Panganiban said.

In addition, 1.26 million textbooks were delivered in 2005 with the textbook-pupil ratio ranging from 1:1 to 1:3. The government plans to procure more books on Mathematics, Science and English.

The government also granted at least 509,564 scholarships in basic education under the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASPE) Program in 2006 while an average of 20,000 college students were given financial assistance or loans for SY 2005-2006.

Panganiban said some 300,000 households outside the National Capital Region (NCR) would be provided with potable water this year and the government would work on realizing a universal coverage of heathcare insurance, especially for the poor, while it upgrades 40 hospitals for "specialization purposes."

The government would also establish more Botika sa Bayan and Botika sa Barangay outlets nationwide so the poor could avail themselves of cheap but quality medicines through the government’s Half-Priced Medicines Program.

In a move to mitigate hunger, the government worked on increasing food production. As of February 2007, a total of 263,942 households have benefited from the Gulayan ng Masa program, or a 58 percent accomplishment rate. More households would be covered by the middle of this year.

Ermita said the President garnered a 21 percent increase in rating among the middle-to-upper Classes A, B, and C, a +7, with 44 percent satisfied and 37 percent dissatisfied, compared to the –14 (33 percent satisfied and 47 dissatisfied) during the survey taken in the previous quarter.

Those belonging to Class E also gave a higher satisfaction rating, at net -8 (37% Satisfied, 45% Dissatisfied), compared to the -25 (30% Satisfied, 54% Dissatisfied) taken last quarter.

It also increased in Luzon outside Metro Manila, at net -2 now (40% Satisfied and 42% Dissatisfied) compared to net -16 (33% Satisfied and 49% Dissatisfied) previously.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has allocated a P20-million budget for the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to administer a special voluntary examination this year for the nurses licensed pursuant to the June 2006 Board of Nursing examination.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita announced in his press briefing in Malacanang this afternoon that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed Executive Order No. 609 on March 12 directing DOLE, acting through the Board of Nursing (BON) and utilizing the administrative processes of the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) to administer a special voluntary examination to the nurses who passed the controversy-laden June 2006 BON examination.

The special voluntary examination maybe taken in the June 2007 and December 2007 BON examinations or once at either dates.

"The examination shall be for the equivalent of Tests III and V of the June 2006 BON examination. The results of these tests shall not affect the validity of the licenses previously issued to the voluntary examinees," Ermita said.

He said the nursing examination process will still follow the rules and procedures as provided by the PRC. DOLE will monitor all stages of voluntary examination processes and examination fees will be waived.

E.O. 609 provides that after correction of the special voluntary nursing test, the BON shall report the results only to the DOLE secretary, unlike the previous policy where the nursing board exam result is reported to the PRC. Public announcement of those who passed the tests will be undertaken both by the DOLE and the BON chair.

The Labor department has been authorized to designate special nursing review centers duly recognized by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).

The President’s directive regarding the tainted 2006 nursing board examination stemmed from the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) decision that Philippine nurses licensed pursuant to the BON test of June 2006 shall not be eligible for the grant of VisaScreen certificates.

The recent survey by Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) placing the Philippines as the most corrupt among the countries in Asia "appears to be just a perception and does not reflect the realities on the ground," Cabinet Secretary Ricardo Saludo said today.

At the regular media briefing of Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita this afternoon in Malacaņang, Saludo said the Hong Kong group had admitted in the survey that they were unsure about the realities in the Philippines despite its deteriorated score.

"Mismong sinabi ng PERC na wala silang nakitang pagsama ng katiwalian sa Pilipinas kahit bumaba yung rating natin," Saludo said. "P-E-R-C itself was saying that they did not see anything going bad in the situation on the ground and the actual corruption situation."

The PERC survey also admitted that "it may be inappropriate to compare the Philippines with other countries" such as those with tight media censorship such as China and Vietnam.

Ermita said the government is aggressively fighting graft and corruption as he also called on everyone to refrain from encouraging bribery.

Ermita and Saludo said the Office of the Ombudsman had dismissed 57 government officials last year while 15 were given preventive suspension.

In a statement this morning, Press Secretary and Presidential Spokesman Ignacio R. Bunye said the present administration "has undertaken a strong and steady effort to curb graft through criminal justice, administrative controls and procedural reforms" particularly in graft-prone and frontline government agencies.

"This effort is focused on the graft-prone revenue agencies that have upped their performance over the recent years; agencies that are in the frontline of day-to-day public services; and local governments that tend to be out of the anti-corruption radar in the past," Bunye added.

He said the records of the Sandiganbayan, the Ombudsman and the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) would show the earnest effort by government to weed out corruption "to drive greater confidence in our political and economic stability."

To give more teeth to the anti-corruption campaign, Malacaņang said the Ombudsman’s budget has been doubled to P960 million under the unprecedented P2 billion anti-graft fund.

Once the P1.126 trillion 2007 national budget is signed into law, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya said some P200 million will be allocated for the Office of the Ombudsman to hire 200 field investigators, 54 lawyers, 150 regional personnel, and hundreds of support staff, including 25 faculty members of an "anti-graft academy" that the Ombudsman will set up.

Andaya said funds have been released to six other agencies, including P106 million to the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and P154 million to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), to accelerate the pace of stamping out corruption and increase tax collection to stream down more resources to healthcare, education, and social services.

The four other agencies are the Philippine National Police (PNP) with P37 million; Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), P407 million; Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC), P230 million; and the Presidential Council on Values Formation, P60 million.