GMA: I offer you my life, wealth, work

President Arroyo pledged her "life, wealth and work" to improve the lot of millions of Filipinos living in poverty as she began a full six-year term yesterday as the country’s 14th president.

Mrs. Arroyo, however, asked the nation in her inaugural address to help achieve that elusive goal, saying "I can’t do everything alone" as the windy edge of a typhoon swept the Quirino Grandstand in Manila’s Rizal Park where she outlined a 10-point anti-poverty program.

Seeking to unify a fractious country, the 57-year-old daughter of a former president once again urged Filipinos to set aside deep political divisions and together fight poverty and bring peace.

"I need all Filipinos to unify," she told a rain-drenched crowd of up to 50,000 people. "United, how can we lose? Together, we will prevail," the US-educated economist said.

She clearly aimed her 20-minute speech at the one-third of the country’s 84 million people who live in poverty and formed the backbone of support for main opposition challenger Fernando Poe Jr.

Poe’s supporters have warned of a possible people power revolt like the ones that ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Mrs. Arroyo’s corruption-tainted predecessor, Joseph Estrada, in 2001, and the government has warned of possible destabilization plots or terror attacks.

During her first three years in office, Mrs. Arroyo struggled without a popular mandate and was constantly hounded by an image of instability, surviving a near-popular uprising by Estrada loyalists in May 2001.

In yesterday’s pre-inaugural speech, Mrs. Arroyo also sought to mend fences with political rivals following a bitter election campaign and a protracted vote count.

There should be "just closure" to the three mass actions referred to as EDSA 1, 2 and 3, she said, so Filipinos could unite and move on.

She hoped that the "divisive issues" of the past political upheavals would someday "be just memories shared by friends from every side of those upheavals. Only the lessons of unity and courage and a just closure left alive in their hearts."

Of the four other candidates who vied for the presidency, only Poe refused to concede defeat, maintaining that Mrs. Arroyo robbed him of victory in the presidential race.

"There are more things that bind than divide us," the US-trained economist and daughter of a former president said. "Candidates all fought with conviction. If only we can fight together, with the same conviction and advance our nation’s progress."

She said she will create more than six million jobs — "perhaps even 10 million jobs" — and will support three million entrepreneurs with loans.

She also pledged 100-percent enrollment of school-age children, a computer in every classroom, and electricity and clean water in every barangay.

"The government must make tough choices, but this I promise: They will be tougher on those who have it easy than on those who have it tough already," she said to applause.

It is "immoral" to bask in great wealth while many people lack medicine, housing, water, among other basic needs, Mrs. Arroyo said.

"It is immoral to allow the enemies of our democracy to threaten our children, paralyze the economy and threaten our future, because the ones who most suffer are the poor," the Chief Executive said.

Mrs. Arroyo also yesterday challenged the business community to "embrace selfless nationalism" and "invest in our people and our country instead of giving excuses for keeping your money abroad, where it can’t put our people to work."

She vowed to crack down on waste, corruption, influence peddlers and tax cheats.

Aiming for a balanced budget, she promised "a government that will live within its means and put every spare peso to real work. I pledge to reduce spending where government doesn’t work and increase spending where government can make a difference for the better."

Mrs. Arroyo has said she wanted "simple" and "austere" inaugural ceremonies to reflect the seriousness of her pledges to improve the lot of the poor.

To decongest Metro Manila and surrounding areas, that now account for a third of the domestic economic output, Mrs. Arroyo said she will build "new centers of government, business and commerce" in the provinces.

She plans to develop "a million hectares, if possible two million, of agricultural business lands by making them productive" as well as improving transport and other infrastructure to link the entire country so output could be brought to markets efficiently.

Mrs. Arroyo also expects peace settlements with Muslim and communist rebels. "All insurgents shall have turned their swords into ploughshares," by the end of her term in 2010. "All struggles will be the stuff of legends."

The government is holding peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front as well as with exiled leaders of the communist insurgency, and US military advisers are training Filipino troops on counter-terrorism.

To put a stop to the country’s tedious manual vote counts — which this year spurred allegations of massive fraud by both sides — she said the next election will be computerized. A contract bidding scandal scrapped the computerization of last month’s 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.

Security forces were on high alert for unrest or terror attacks, with police saying they arrested four men Tuesday with bomb-making materials possibly aimed at the inauguration.

Later in the day dozens of leftist protesters were turned back while marching toward the oath-taking in southern Cebu City, and radio reports some protesters were injured in scuffles with police. Another group of protesters carried a poster calling Mrs. Arroyo the "mother of all cheaters."

But there was no trouble as Mrs. Arroyo and her vice presidential running mate Noli de Castro were sworn in by Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. in front of the Cebu provincial capitol.

Scattered sunshine broke through in Cebu just before the President’s arrival there. The inauguration was attended by 55 ambassadors and 2,000 other guests but no head of state.

Poe’s running mate, former senator Loren Legarda, said the bad weather during Mrs. Arroyo’s speech was an omen. "It’s like a prelude to what’ll happen in the country," she told a news conference. "We will face more storms."

Legarda said the opposition Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino has no plans to concede and is pondering a Supreme Court challenge of the election results, a procedure that could take years.

"There is no need to concede because we did not lose," she said. "The election… was marred by fraud, and let history be the judge."

Mrs. Arroyo should be able to take a harder line against vested business and political interests because she no longer needs to worry about reelection but she must score some quick wins, said Mike Moran, regional economist at Standard Chartered Bank.

"She’s making the right sounds, she’s talking the talk," Moran said. "Now’s the time to really walk the walk as well. That’s what she’s going to be judged on."

Norwegian Charge d’Affaires Lars Loberg said: "It seems she will be trying to solve all Filipinos’ problems in six years, and that is really a challenge." — With Marvin Sy, AFP