Ambassador Ricciardone’s press conference
Lingayen, Jan. 9, 2005

 

Q: Sir, what is your impression?

Ambassador Ricciardone: Well, it’s a beautiful province and in some places it reminds me of either Louisiana in the United States or South Carolina with all the shrimp activities and the estuary fisheries. So it’s very attractive for Americans. The food is delicious, I’ve had the best bangus in the world and bagoong also, which I like very much with green mango. You have lovely mangoes here. So, I had a good time. I had a chance to visit the headquarters that MacArthur used over here in Dagupan. I am very impressed by the restoration of the provincial capital here. There’s much to see. The beach looked beautiful from the air as we came in by helicopter the other day. There is an important American private sector investment in Pangasinan at the Sual (?) Power Plant thanks to the vision of President Ramos in opening up the country to foreign investment in the power sector. We see a modern clean coal technology in a power plant – the largest one in the Philippines right here in Pangasinan. So, it’s a province with a lot of dynamism, energy, and a lot to see and do. It’s great to be here.

Q: Do you expect some more American investment in Pangasinan in the near future?

Ambassador Ricciardone: Well, I hope so. It would be a very nice thing. I saw the promotional video put out by the town fathers and it’s clear that it’s a city that wants the outside world to come and do business. So, I got the message that Pangasinan is open for business, Dagupan is open for business, and Lingayen and all your towns are clearly active, magnetic places.

Q: Do you see the possibility of an airport or investing in an airport here?

Ambassador Ricciardone: You could sure use (cut off by next question below)

Q: With American help

Ambassador Ricciardone: I don’t know about American help.

Q: Laughter

Ambassador Ricciardone: You have all this economic activity, and no major seaport, and no major airport. I was talking with the Mayor of Dagupan on the way over here about the problem of not having an airport or seaport. That kind of thing, I should think wouldn’t come from foreign investors, that ought to come from local capital investment and your own infrastructure. And if there’s good business behind it, a profit to be made, then private funds should flow into something like that.

Q: Sir, since the successful comeback of President Bush to power, after winning the percentage of the election in the United States, what is the understanding of the political and bilateral relationship of the U.S. and the Philippines?

Ambassador Ricciardone: Well, I think our political and bilateral relations are excellent. Between President Bush and President Arroyo in their respective first terms, I think they took our relations to historic new highs. And now that in my country we’ve had the democratic renewal process of an election, and in your country you’ve had the democratic renewal process of an election, in the very same year, I think it sets us up for even further success. You have two revived, re-energized administrations in each country, each through their legitimate Constitutional processes, and two forward-looking governments eager to make their marks, create their legacies, not only with each other, but also domestically, so I think all systems are go.

Q: Mr. Ambassador, can you give your comment or assessment on the latest anti-terrorism effort being made by our country?

Ambassador Ricciardone: Well, I think it’s been a year of great success against terrorism in the Philippines and in the world. We are winning the war on terrorism and the Philippines, I think, shows that. You have arrested a number of people who have done terrible things. You had the terrible ferry bombing last year but you arrested all the people responsible. You investigated them and now I gather, prosecution is underway, or at least being developed. You’ve arrested a number of people who have confessed to planting bombs, or planning to plant bombs over the past year, and I think it has been a great year of success. We’ve been increasing our operations and intelligence fusion together, toward military to military cooperation, police cooperation, intelligence cooperation and more than just the law enforcement and military part, there’s been a lot of development assistance.

Q: In relation to the Philippines campaign against terrorism, Mr. Ambassador, your President Bush promised to give the Philippines helicopters and equipment for the Armed Forces of the Philippines. How soon are they coming?

Ambassador Ricciardone: They will be coming this year. For us, more important than simply giving you things is to stand behind your leaders who are doing great things for themselves. You have a military leadership now and a Secretary of National Defense who are leading a major structural reform of the Armed Forces of the Philippines…getting rid of graft and corruption, imposing transparency, efficiency, and capabilities so that your soldiers will have all the equipment they need, the training they need, the assignments they need, and paying them in modern ways so that the money won’t go astray. We’re rolling up our sleeves and putting our effort behind the Philippines Defense Reform. Sure, they’ll be helicopters in the pipeline, but for us, what’s more important is not just helicopters, it’s renewing the institution of the Armed Forces and beyond the Armed Forces. We want President Arroyo to succeed in her campaign to clean out corruption, not just in the military but wherever it’s found and she’s making great progress.

Q: Mr. Ambassador, may we know your latest policy and of the U.S. Government on programs for our war veterans?

Ambassador Ricciardone: Well, I think under the Bush administration, we’ve done more than any administration since World War II to improve the benefits going to Filipino veterans…we’ve brought them up to full parity for those that live in the United States -- even if they’re not U.S. citizens -- they are up to full parity. We’ve done more to increase the benefits of this country as well, with what I think is an additional 2 million dollars in the past couple years to the Philippines Veterans Memorial Hospital. So I hope to see that continue. I hope we will be able to get the next American Secretary of Veterans Affairs here. The United States Veterans Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, only oversees operations here in the Philippines as part of our embassy and I’m very proud of that.

Q: Sir, is the U.S. Embassy in our country foreseeing any restrictions on the immigration process due to terrorism?

Ambassador Ricciardone: No, there aren’t new restrictions on immigration or visiting the United Sates. We have a new sort of slogan in the United States since 9/11. It’s “Secure Borders, Open Doors.” Those doors are open. We welcome visitors, we welcome immigrants as ever. We particularly welcome Filipinos. We have so many, at least two, probably three million Filipino-Americans in the United States, a little over one hundred thousand Americans in this country. We have a really intimate human relationship together. We encourage travel to the United States whether for temporary business, study, medicine, tourism, or for any legitimate purpose.

Q: But Sir, there’s this question about Filipina nurses.

Ambassador Ricciardone: We’re certainly not closing our doors. We need more nurses. What we are doing however, is acting in accordance with the law which specifies how many can come in, it specifies limits on the intake from each country around the world. There’s been such huge demand from the Philippines, of course, partly the push demand from the Philippines, and the pull demand, because there’s a positive branding of the Philippine name brand for nurses, teachers, doctors, and engineers in the United States. But more have been coming in than the quotas that have been provided for by law. So we’re bumping up against those quotas. We’re going to have to deal with that in some way.

Q: What countries … tsunami…(inaudible) but your country is course a donor for these countries. The number one is Japan, Australia, and Germany. How soon will America add its donation to become the number one donor in those countries?

Ambassador Ricciardone: It depends how you measure, of course. If you measure in private donations as well as government cash donations, I don’t think any other country is putting as many aircraft, ships and men into this, because other countries simply don’t have them. It’s not that other countries wouldn’t do it if they had them, but we have something like 100 aircraft, something like 50 helicopters (48 or 41 helicopters in fixed wings) working around the clock to bring in supplies. Those are irreplaceable. There’s no other way of getting emergency relief in. As we saw here in Quezon Province and Aurora Province, I was just there with your President a few weeks ago, we bought in ten or twelve American helicopters at that point out of Clark. In these disaster areas, that’s the only way you can do it. Those helicopters cost thousands of dollars per hour to fly, thousands of dollars per hour. So I don’t know how you count up to millions. For me, keeping statistics as if there’s some kind of competition to show who is greatest is beside the point. This is a global tragedy. It’s a human tragedy for all of us and I don’t think we’re looking over our shoulders to keep score of how much is Japan giving, how much is America giving, how much is the Philippines giving. You know your country isn’t rich in cash, but you are rich in human talent, and you’ve donated volunteer forensic doctors, I know, to the task. All of us are giving in accordance with our abilities as quickly as we can.

Q: Sir, since America is rich in technology and financial resources, are you going to help in putting up early warning devices in the South Pacific Ocean and South China Sea?

Ambassador Ricciardone: Sure, I was just reading an article the other day…since the mid-1990’s we’re actually been at work on a global geographic early warning system and I see that conversation has been taken up again. We’re going to work with other governments in the area and we’ll see what we can do. These are huge technical and scientific challenges. And I think this has awakened the consciousness of everybody around the world especially in the areas with need for them. And I think we will all be working together to see how to bring technology to bear and finance this. It will be good for all of us.

Q: Sir, any message for the war veterans who are present this moment?

Ambassador Ricciardone: Yes, we’re here to salute all of the veterans who survived World War II, all the people who were in uniform then, and all the people who were in the resistance. We thank them for passing on to us a world that is more secure and more prosperous than the world they knew. We take that as an obligation to pass on to our children, a world that is more secure and more prosperous than the world we have. So, we thank them, we are deeply touched and honored that they are still with us, and we wish them many more years with us. We will always be inspired by their examples.

Capt. Williams: We have time for one more question.

Q: The U.S. is offering rewards for the capture of terrorist leaders – five million dollars for Usama bin Laden. I wonder whether this reward system has been working. Another, is the U.S. planning to attack North Korea?

Ambassador Ricciardone: Laughter. Second one first – the answer is no. We’re not planning to attack North Korea. The first one – the answer is yes. It’s working spectacularly well, including in the Philippines. The Rewards for Justice Program is very much alive and in effect in the Philippines. It has produced a lot of information about very bad people who want to plant bombs in market places and so forth. The information continues to come in. We have information on the U.S. Embassy website regarding the Rewards for Justice Program in the Philippines. We will continue to operate that program and continue to expand it. And it’s been very successful. I expect it will continue to help us make inroads against these people who are training to plant bombs, who are smuggling in explosives and guns, there have been a number of successes in the past year and many of those successes are attributable to the Rewards for Justice Program. So it will continue.

Q: Thank you.

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