Press Meeting
with Officials from the U.S. Embassy and
the Philippine Department of Education
(Note: Briefing the press are U.S. Ambassador
Francis J. Ricciardone, USAID Philippines Country Director, Dr.
Michael Yates, USAID Senior
Educational Advisor, Dr. Thomas Kral, U.S. Embassy Public Affairs
Counselor, Mr. Ron Post, and Assistant Secretary Alice A. Pañares,
Media and Public Relations Consultant, Department of Education.)
Press question: Good morning. I’m Donna Pasibugan from the
Philippine Daily Inquirer. To Ambassador Ricciardone, and maybe,
to Mr. Benjamin of the Peace Corps: You’ve essentially outlined
your programs and projects for Mindanao for this year. Am I correct?
Were there new considerations about your projects in light of your
assessment of the security situation in Mindanao? Were there any
new considerations that you considered with regards to security
of your Peace Corps volunteers and your programs also?
Ambassador Ricciardone: Why don’t I deal with the second
question first, which is broader, I think, and then let my colleagues
discuss how our educational programs in Mindanao compliment those
that USEC Boransing has just described in the conversation that
he’s had.
On the security question, we think education is part of the solution
to security problems everywhere. We agree with President Arroyo
in this. She’s pointed out that the issues of terrorism and
lawlessness are not caused by poverty necessarily, but they can
certainly incubate in poverty. That’s what Americans believe.
There are lots of poor people around the world who are not terrorists
and criminals. So, you can’t say poverty causes criminality
or terrorism, but it can be a seedbed in which people will preach
ignorance and preach hate and division, and we think education
is the antidote to that. If you educate people you empower them.
You can give them economic opportunity. You can offer choices for
livelihoods and you can help people understand that living together
and working together is the right way and that any true of anybody’s
religion is not to demonize the other or to preach hate for the
other.
Maybe that wasn’t the thrust of your question, but I can
turn that question on its head. Security doesn’t prevent
education or lack of security doesn’t prevent education --
a lack of security demands education to address the problem. So
we’re not frightened off by terrorism or criminality. Your
government isn’t frightened off, your local parents aren’t
refusing to educate their children; they’re demanding more
education. You have teachers working in areas where there are terrorists.
I personally visited Basilan island four or five times in my almost
3 years here. When I first visited, I saw burnt out school areas
where the Abu Sayyaf have come in and burnt places and murdered
teachers. When I went back the last time with USAID Administrator
Andrew Natsios in October, I saw computers with the Internet linking
up the children of Basilan to the world. So I saw the power of
education.
The Abu Sayyaf is gone now. There’s a few of them hiding
out in the hills or something, but the students are back at school,
the teachers are there, they get better equipment. The school boards
are getting stronger, their parents are involved, the teachers
are involved and they’re demanding education and they’re
keeping the bad guys out. So I’ve seen the power of education
at work against terrorism, criminality and ignorance, and we’re
keeping that up.
Are we concerned about security? Sure, we are. Of course. We want
to make sure that our people, like the Filipino people they work
among, are always safe. The short answer to your question is, the
security situation in Mindanao has not prevented our programs from
going forward. On the contrary, it has encouraged us to do more.
As for the specifics of the program -- I believe that was the
first part of your question -- Dr. Yates or Dr. Kral could recap
some of the things we discussed a little earlier. Do you want to
do that? Sure. We could show how they fit with what Dr. Boransing
was just explaining. I think the first part of the question was
to enumerate some of the things we’re doing in Mindanao in
education.
Dr. Kral: In fact, the USAID program is specifically focused upon
conflict-affected areas within Mindanao. We ourselves may not be
traveling heavily in those areas, but we’re working with
Filipino partners who are also talking with local authorities as
to determine the safety of their presence in those locations.
But security is really not a detriment to the implementation of
our program. It’s infrastructure that may stand in the way.
One of our partners will be providing educational TV to certain
communities within the ARMM. And in their projected program, they’ve
had to make some adjustments as to what geographical areas they
will concentrate on during their first year. Because there simply
isn’t the infrastructure present. If communities are not
electrified, they can’t really be pilot locations, but that
doesn’t dismiss them from support in the future. What it
does is shifts their use of the resources to other sections within
the ARMM where there are satellite connections and electrical connections
where they can implement an education TV program.
We’re oriented towards the conflict-affected areas so security
is not at all a detriment. It’s the other aspects. As Ambassador
Ricciardone has said, by putting effort into areas like Basilan,
the situation has turned around. And this is what we hope will
be the case in Lanao del Sur, and other areas where we find that
there isn’t the infrastructure present at this particular
moment, but we certainly hope to assist in developing that infrastructure
so that we can broaden USAID activities beyond just rural electrification
to include education.
Dr. Yates: If I can add a general note about the way USAID works,
not only in Mindanao, but anywhere we work in the country. To be
perfectly honest, we don’t really invent programs. It’s
almost like we discover programs. We discover at the local level
groups who are committed to doing the right kinds of things to
encourage social and economic development, and we support those
groups. We provide opportunities where there are groups willing
to take on strong local ownership to do the right kinds of things.
And that’s important in terms of understanding the way USAID
works in Mindanao and throughout the country. It’s really
providing support to the right people at the local level committed
to doing the right things.
Press question: I’m Ruel Castro from Business World. This
is the first project that was unveiled by USAID for 2005. Are there
any other projects that you are going to pour into the Philippines?
Dr. Yates: Actually, this program was approved just about a year
ago, so it’s been in the process of being designed, working
closely with local partners and went through an open, competitive
procurement process through which we were able to identify six
consortia of private sector partners who were very anxious to work
with us and partner.
Tom Kral could talk in more detail about who some of those partners
are. But we maintain a large and active partnership with the Philippines
through USAID. Last year, in fiscal year 2004, we actually provided
just over 90 million dollars in direct grant assistance from USAID
Philippines. Roughly 64 percent of those total resources went to
program activities in Mindanao.
We’re optimistic that we will continue to have a very active
and dynamic program working with local partners. And it’s
in several areas. Education is our newest program but we also do
very good work in helping to consolidate the peace process in Mindanao
through things like our ‘Arms to Farms’ program where
we have already worked with local partners to successfully re-integrate
almost 25 thousand former rebel combatants.
We also have an economic governance program. We have environment
and energy activities. We have population, health and nutrition
activities, and we will continue to maintain those five basic program
areas in the years ahead.
Press question: Ambassador Ricciardone, Raffy Tima from GMA 7.
How important is it for the United States to support a good educational
system for the Philippines, relating this to the global war of
terrorism, or is it proper to relate the two: proper education,
especially in Mindanao, and the global war on terrorism?
Ambassador Ricciardone: We’re proud of our leadership in
education around the world. We like to think that in many ways,
in many fields, the United States sets the standards in education
long before there was a global war on terrorism.
I spoke at the outset of our meeting this morning of the legacy
of the Americans in the Philippines, about a continuing vital link
between our two countries. Not just the Thomasites that brought
American teachers here, but now you have Filipino teachers going
to the United States, your Filipino students going to the United
States and vice versa -- coming here through the Fulbright program.
It’s really a vital link: our great educational institutions.
Yesterday, I welcomed to my office Dr. Jack Degioia, the president
of Georgetown University. We have five more university presidents
visiting in a month. Education links us above and beyond the war
on terrorism.
But your question is a good one, because we also discuss here
the real power -- not the soft power or a secondary power -- but
the really pre-eminent power of education: to combat terrorism,
and criminality and poverty; to give people opportunities in livelihoods;
to overcome ignorance and hate and extremism and fear. All the
things that thrive if you don’t educate young people and
let them see alternatives and let them have hope. So we do believe
in education as an important way of strengthening our countries
and our democracies against the evil power of extremist fanatics.
By that, I don’t mean fanatics of one religion or another,
but anyone who thinks that they can preach violence and hate as
a solution for anything. So sure, it gives us extra impetus when
we see the need so starkly to overcome the power of bad ideologies
and bad ideas.
Assistant Secretary Pañares: I just have one question,
Ambassador. We have many aid efforts and supports groups working
in Mindanao, and so far we would want a cohesive mapping of these
different aid efforts. Of course, it’s not only the United
States. We also have aid, too, and other countries. And what I
find difficult at times is that some efforts of groups, even from
the same country, don’t know what the other group is doing,
or there might be some overlapping.
From our perspective, I’m working with an English proficiency
program and we’ve worked with Dr. Kral. We find it difficult
if we don’t have the database of, for example, where the
computers are. We’re launching an elementary assessment test.
We’ve done the high school. We’ve already tested 53,000
high school teachers in English, Science and Math, and that was
the basis for our training where Dr. Kral brought Deborah Richardson
to help us and she’s been a great help in doing direct, face
to face with our very good -- these are the topnotchers that we
are testing. We’ve tested 53,000 but we’re training
master trainers of 3,000. We’re already finished with 1,900.
This coming week we’re going to Mindanao to train the rest.
Now we are already embarking on the elementary level. Now that’s
the bulk of our teachers. That’s 450,000 of them, yes. So
we’d like to probably see some kind of mapping of the efforts
of USAID, Peace Corps, TUDLO and all the different projects. There’s
even Quality Circle with Philip Burnell. There are quite a number
of efforts going on and we’re happy about it. Except that
the overlapping and maybe the mapping of where these aids are and
what kind of aid is being given is not too clear.
Our next move to test our teachers for the elementary is using
computer-based testing. Because we can’t 450,000 -- face
to face. So we are going to Mindanao next. And we’re ready
to do computer testing but we don’t know where the computers
are. So, it would help if you have some kind of mapping, like Tawi-tawi,
Basilan, Sulu, and other places. And in Region 12, where these
computers are because the answers have to be encoded on computers.
Dr. Yates: Would you like us to send you a list of the schools?
We’ll be happy to do that.
Assistant Secretary Pañares: Yes. That would help us greatly.
Dr. Kral: We are working increasingly closely among ourselves,
but also with the donor community as a whole. Because USAID has
only recently established an education program, we are new players.
But we’re joining forces with Australian Aid, UNICEF and
the various others, ADB . . ., and we do want to work together
to get a broader understanding of where each of our efforts are
focused so that there isn’t redundancy but rather complementarity.
We want to go to areas that are not being served, that still have
the potential to receive this assistance. We do see this happening.
We see this as a real need, and in that regard we’re really
thinking along the same lines here. But in terms of what we can
provide for you right now as to the recipients of our CLIC program,
we can do that within the day.
Mr. Post: The problem with this is that when we tell you today,
then we’re going to do something else tomorrow and you’re
not going to know about it. The Ambassador has already instructed
us to set up a page on our website for education. And I think that’s
something that we will keep up to date and make it a reference
for you. It occurs to me that the Department of Education, which
I know has its own web page, could link all of these web pages
to its site. So anybody in your bureau who wanted to know what
the Americans were doing on this certain subject could go to our
web page, or the Australians on their web page, or some of the
private sector organizations as well. That would be a great service,
and then the trick is to get the web pages updated. That’s
always the hard page. We’ll do our part.
Assistant Secretary Pañares: I think it would be great
if we have that database because we don’t have much time.
We’re going to Mindanao and we’re talking to the BEAN
(?) people also where we can already start off with the elementary
and do some kind of computer-based progressive assessment in English,
and we’re at a loss where the computers are. So that would
help us greatly. Thank you.
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