Transcript of U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone’s remarks
at the Transportation Security Forum
Manila, September 8, 2004

Good morning. Magandang umaga sa inyong lahat. It’s a pleasure to be with you all. Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for taking time to join us this morning. And colleagues: Mr. Meltz, Mr. Barillo, Mr. Knox, Mr. Gillett; business people, and officials. Thank you all so much for joining us at the start of an interesting program here. I think it will be an illuminating one. It is not merely a sales event. It is that; trade is good. We are celebrating a partnership, and we are also going to be looking at an area of concern, great concern, to my government and to your government, and that is how to protect our people better, and that means protecting our commerce, our supply chains, our flow of goods as well as people, of course, across our borders and other borders as well.

Our mission in the Philippines is about three business lines: security, prosperity and service. That is to say, strengthening our mutual security, the mutual security of the Philippines and the United States. I meet with the Secretary of Transportation, other members of the Cabinet. I met again with the President yesterday and her top national security leaders. It’s something where we use that word ‘partnership’ a lot. We’re working together on strengthening our mutual security. Don’t pay attention to the ups and downs of politics and the things you read in the newspapers. That common interest in strengthening our mutual security is unshakeable, it is important, and we continue to work on it. I’m headed back to Washington again tomorrow for a couple of weeks of leave but, even so, I will squeeze in a couple of days of consultations, and it will be very much focused on security and security cooperation.

The second word of that triad: prosperity. We want to build our mutual prosperity. We’re interdependent in this global world. Whether we like globalization or we don’t, it’s there. And as business people, I don’t need to preach to you what that means. The free flow of goods, of people, of finances, of ideas, of science and technology matters, and it’s good business. It is the way we both create more jobs in our own countries and see to the prosperity of our people. That’s why that’s the second word of our motto and, again, that what we’re about here today in the partnership that you have just seen born before your very eyes and duly recorded for history in the photographs that we took. So, partnership and prosperity is another thing.

Finally, service is another reason why we exist as the United States Embassy in Manila. It is to provide services to the American public and to the Filipino public. To business people who need to get visas to go to the United States, to send their people to the United States to train, to look at what’s available in terms of American science and technology, and to have American business people come here and build those partnerships also require services. That’s why we’re not just a virtual Embassy with a website where you can apply for your visas. We are a service-providing agency that accounts for a good number of people that we have. That is our security, prosperity and service.

It’s a particular pleasure to be here with you. There are some personal connections. If I understand correctly from my briefing papers -- although I don’t see it on Mr. Meltz’s card -- is it true that L3 Communications is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusettes, that you produce there? Well, I’m from Medford, Massachusetts. Two members of my family went to school in Waltham, Massachusetts and lived there for a while. I’m familiar with Waltham and, more importantly, I grew up inside the Route 128 Silicon Valley of the East. We were there first. I guess the Silicon Valley is the Route 128 of the West, the way I look at it.

Boston is famous for its science and technology, but also Boston was the origin -- greater Boston, the North Shore -- the origins of the United States-Philippines’ relationship. Many people don’t understand that, but the first U.S. contacts with the Philippines were through a trader, a businessman named Nathaniel Bowditch who came over here at the end of the 18th century and really began it all when the Philippines was still a part of Spain. That’s something that we New Englanders know about and are proud of. So, there’s another tie there that your company is building on today. The commercial tie -- the trade between our two countries that really got us first to know each other and which has prospered throughout the American experience with the Philippines. So, it’s a nice thing to be celebrating. You are going to be sort of listening to the Philippines’ expert in transportation and security in just a few minutes.

The Secretary and I meet often, and with Bert Williams, my colleague from the Transportation Security Agency, to strengthen the Philippines’ borders because the Philippines’s borders are our borders too. Goods pass directly between the two increasingly by air, as well as by sea. This matters to the United States. We have got several important initiatives to secure our borders, not merely for the movement of people.

By the way, I go right from here to our Embassy to celebrate a new technological advance in the processing of people crossing our borders. We’re going to be doing a public events showing how we are introducing biometrics, finger scanning, to go with our visas. So, I go from this event, where we’re working on in improving the security of the flow of goods, to the next one, where we’re helping to prevent the identify theft of Filipinos and thereby help secure our borders while opening our doors. Because at the end of the day, what we’re about here is not making it harder to move people or goods into the United States, it is actually to make it easier using technology. More secure, but not harder. And that is the name of the game. That’s what L3 Com is all about.

Why am I doing this as the American Ambassador? We do promote American trade and American business with the Philippines. American exports of technology and services. In the case of L3 Communications, it turns out the United States Government does a lot of business with this firm, so we know them to be reputable. Indeed, in the case of my own Embassy, we used L3 Com equipment to help protect us. So, for all those reasons and not merely because it’s from Waltham, Massachusetts, greater Boston as I am, but also because it is a good thing for the Philippines, and a good thing for the United States of America. I am very proud and pleased to join you today.

I thank you very much for this opportunity. I look forward to shaking a few more of your hands. If you will forgive me, after the Secretary is done speaking, I am going to have to excuse myself to go into the biometrics press event downtown at our Embassy. You’re all welcome at our Embassy anytime. I hope you do find that we are easy to do business with. We really strive for customer service. If there are visa issues preventing you from doing business with Asia Borders Philippines and L3 Com, please let me know and we’ll try to do what we can to sort things out. Thank you all very much.

 

# # #