Interview with Arroyo: Extended Transcript — page 4

TIME: If there are currently training camps in Mindanao, in effect you are saying that after the Kuala Lumpur peace talks there won't be anymore?
Arroyo: The MILF has renounced, they have explicitly renounced terrorist ties.

TIME: So there are no more military camps training foreign terrorists in the Philippines?
Arroyo: What I'm saying is, if there are, that is not part of the peace talks. The fight against terrorism continues; the enforcement of law continues. We are expecting the MILF to help us find these camps and overrun them and interdict the terrorists.

TIME: Do you think the MILF is being forthcoming?
Arroyo: We have our monitoring teams. The monitoring teams, especially the Malaysian-led monitoring team, are there for a very important reason—to address these comments.

TIME: The economy is running nicely, but can the Philippines really see the boom that other countries in the region have seen without solving these terrorist issues?
Arroyo: They go together, of course. But notwithstanding these challenges, we've had a faster growth rate than many of our neighbors. Our stock market is doing very well, our peso is stable. Our domestic market is keeping us resilient—and that's not by accident. We worked on policies to strengthen our domestic market.

TIME: I've read that you're somewhat of a fan of Thaksin's economic policies?
Arroyo: Yes, exactly. I've not been shy about saying that I like many of the instruments that he used for promoting small and medium enterprises and housing, and now in the war on drugs. We have a very good relationship with each other. Thailand's Air Force is more advanced than the Philippines', and he's assisting our Air Force with actual planes. He's going to deliver 4 planes in September. And I asked him to come and give a lecture on what I have called "Thaksinomics" so that the bureaucrats can learn from him directly the things he's done to make his program work. You know, when Thaksin first talked about "one town, one product; one village, one product; one million baht", everybody made fun of him. But one year later, other countries were also replicating it including the Philippines. The economists call it "managed asset reflation".

TIME: What's going to be the main thing on your agenda in your last year of office?
Arroyo: My focus is still on the economy and security. And as I said, we continue to strengthen the Republic, for instance by strengthening the Bureau of Internal Revenue by fighting corruption there. I think another area of great reform is the Philippine National Police. I am forming a commission called the PNP Reform Commission, which I will ask to report back to me with a recommendation for a complete overhaul of the Philippine National Police. That's another strengthening of the Republic. We are strengthening the BIR and Customs by running after the crooks, but we also want to strengthen the institutions themselves. So we have a bill to create a National Revenue Authority. We also want to strengthen the judiciary by improving compensation for judges, so that more upright and competent judges will join the force. And also by strengthening mediation as a means of settling disputes in order to de-clog the judicial system.

I also want to reform the school system. I want to close our school-building gap once and for all. In a developing country like ours, if you have more than 50 but less than 100 students in a school, you can have two shifts [of classes]. But if you have more than a hundred students, then the two-shift idea won't work. We have to close that school-building gap once and for all. And I'm very grateful to divine Providence for making this Marcos money available, because that can close the gap. And this is on top of the reforms that have been made already in strengthening math and science education and English education. So now, we work on the school-building gap and on distance learning for the faraway students. That's what I mean by strengthening our Republic—strengthening the institutions. So that they will execute good policy.

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