Arroyo sworn in as RP president
Arroyo sworn in as RP president
Mynardo Macaraig
Agence France-Presse/Cebu, Philippines
Gloria Arroyo was sworn in as the 14th president of the
Philippines on Wednesday, pledging jobs and peace to the
Southeast Asian nation laboring under crushing debt, political
instability and armed rebellions.
Up to 10,000 residents cheered the 57 year-old U.S.-educated
economist and grandmother as she flew to this central city to
take her oath of office at noon before Supreme Court chief
justice Hilario Davide.
Former television presenter Manuel de Castro was sworn in as
vice president. Both officials will serve for six years.
Arroyo earlier delivered her inaugural speech before 30,000
government workers at a typhoon-lashed public square in Manila.
She pledged to unite the nation after years of political
upheaval, tackle corruption, fix the state's fiscal woes,
mobilize capital for the private sector, create jobs, improve
infrastructure, and end various rebellions.
Police were out in force a day after foiling what they
described as a plot by Filipino Islamic militants to bomb the
inauguration.
Police on Tuesday also battled a street riot by supporters of
chief election rival Fernando Poe Jr., the country's most popular
movie star who has yet to concede defeat and who claims he was
cheated out of victory.
In Cebu, baton-wielding riot police beat back about 150
leftist as well as pro-Poe protesters bearing "Gloria, Fake
President" placards. Police said two protesters were injured as
they tried to crash the oathtaking ceremony.
In a country where more than half of its 84 million people
live on US$2 a day, Arroyo pledged to "establish a deep
foundation for a broad middle class" by raising private and
government capital to support three million entrepreneurs.
"I pledge to bring you a pro-poor agenda that will lift up our
poorest brothers and sisters, invest them with dignity and imbue
them with hope," she said.
"I pledge to do everything necessary to expand the economy,
engage it in the world of commerce and advance the interests of
our country and our people the world over."
She promised to create "more than six million jobs" and
develop a million hectares of agricultural business lands.
Transport and other infrastructure would be improved to link the
entire country so agricultural output could be brought to the
markets efficiently, she added.
Arroyo said she would work to decongest Manila, which now
accounts for a third of the domestic economic output, by building
"new centers of government, business and commerce" elsewhere.
She also said "peace will have come to Mindanao," the southern
third of the country that has been wracked by decades of Muslim
separatist and communist insurgencies, as well as by the newer
threat of Islamic militants linked to the al-Qaeda network.
Manila is holding peace talks with the largest Moro guerrilla
group in the south as well as with exiled leaders of the
communist movement, and U.S. military advisers are training
Filipino troops on counter-terrorism.
The president pledged 100 percent enrollment of school-age
children, a computer in every classroom, electricity and tap
water to the entire country, and the full computerization of
elections.
She did not say how she would finance the government projects.
The government has in recent years resorted to massive borrowing
to remedy weak state revenues.
Elected vice president in 1998, Arroyo came to power when a
military-backed revolt ended the corruption-tainted presidency of
movie-star Joseph Estrada in January 2001.
She struggled without a popular mandate, surviving a military
rebellion 11 months ago.