GMA: Only God can judge me at the end of my life

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga — Besieged by impeachment complaints and coup plots, President Arroyo said here yesterday that at the end of the day, it would not be history that would be her judge — only God.

"What we were born to be, we were born to serve God, in the end it’s going to be God who will judge who has been good and who has not been good," the Catholic school-bred Mrs. Arroyo pointed out.

"I’m not after being a great person. I said I want to be a good President, now to be (one) is not even necessarily history because in the end who is going to judge whether one is good or not?" President Arroyo asked.

Mrs. Arroyo said she herself could not tell now if she had been doing good because "that’s for the Lord to determine at the end of my life."

Several impeachment complaints against her had been filed by various groups on allegations that she cheated her way to victory in the 2004 elections, among other charges involving her policies.

Mrs. Arroyo said her only focus now was to improve the economy and bring more investments into the country.

She said she was happy with the country’s current performance despite the political noise and the rising oil prices in the world market.

The President said the country could have achieved more without the political noise but given that, she noted the gains that the Philippines had been posting despite the global oil price hikes that had been hurting world economies.

She said she could not make things happen by waving a magic wand and that she would be needing all the support she could get as leader of the nation.

"We all have to make it (progress) happen," the President said.

Mrs. Arroyo presided over the joint Cabinet-Regional Development Council meeting here where the various infrastructure projects to attract investments were discussed.

She said investors must start paying attention to the Philippines especially with the good economic indicators.

‘Look at indicators’

"They should be told look at our economics, look at our indicators, look at our 5.5 percent growth rate, look at our budgetary surplus in April and May, look at our deficit that has gone drastically therefore look at our strong peso, look at our foreign exchange reserve, $21 billion when we only need $16 billion to make our peso stable, look at our benign inflation rate compared to the world oil prices," she said.

There was a 5.5 percent growth in the gross domestic product in the first quarter, and "we will be expecting even six percent for the second quarter."

She also noted the "historic" P18-billion budget surplus in April and P5 billion in May, which she said was "the biggest in almost a decade and yet we had expected to balance the budget by 2008 or by 2010 yet."

The President said that "we have a marked inflow in foreign investments at $500 million in the first four months" and a "double digit growth of our exports at 17 percent for May."

"So if you look at the numbers, they can see that we achieved this in spite of the political noise. Of course, what more can we achieve without the political noise?" Mrs. Arroyo added.

She said that to boost the economy further, she has instructed Trade Secretary Peter Favila to organize a national competitiveness summit, and that a national competitiveness council was in the works.

"The national coffer is growing, thanks to our fiscal reforms. We can now fund projects and programs that people, business and even regions have been seeking for quite some time. At last, government investments and undertakings can take off towards development of the country and alleviation of poverty," she said.

The President, however, stressed the need to "increase our capital stock by 10 percent a year to catch up with the richer countries of Asia."

"We will have an additional P100 billion in annual investment for the whole country because our tax reforms gave us P80 billion a year, and our administrative reforms are giving us at least P20 billion more. We will spend in public investments, in infrastructure and also in social development, security, livelihood and enterprise facility and good governance.

"And this should in turn address the problems of unemployment, food and prices," she said. — With Ding Cervantes