Thank you very much Celia.

That was Celia, right? Yes. I didn’t see you but I could recognize your voice. (laughter)

Miss Wells, president of Soroptimist. Congratulations! on your election as president.

Our Soroptimist members of the house. Ang kaakit-akit na mga Congresswomen ng Bulacan -- (laughter/applause) Lorna and Neneng Nicolas; (applause) Governor Villarica, our beautiful head of Soroptimist in the Philippines; Commissioner Amelou Benetiz-Reyes; our awardees, very outstanding indeed; members of the Soroptimist from America and of course from the Philippines; to our friends from the United States, welcome to the Philippines! And to our Soroptimist friends and our awardees from the Philippines, welcome to Malacañang! (applause)

It’s a pleasure for me to break bread with some of the most active advocates of women empowerment.

And as I learn about the Soroptimist, I learned that from a handful of determined Filipinas in 1966, Soroptimist International in the Philippines has grown to 2,000 with 88 clubs and making up two percent of the worldwide membership of Soroptimist. So, Congratulations! (applause)

You have been an important presence in Soroptimist International because of your large percentage of the membership. But you’ve also been a very important presence in our country. You’ve been working to improve the lot of the poorest and the most marginalized Filipinas in health, in environment, in education -- as we have seen from our awardees -- in human rights and in socio-economic development.

Because of your meaningful programs, I have learned that your are one of the few global women organizations consulted by UN bodies like the UN ECOSOC, the UNESCO and the ILO. Congratulations for that! (applause)

Speaking of the UN, the UN and in its Millennium Development Goals Report recognizes our country for gender parity. And if we have been successful in this and recognize for this, I think one of the reasons is that our administration’s programs hew very closely to your organizations programs. So we have been working together and in synergy. This common commitment has helped our nation become one of the leaders in gender parity.

For instance, in the World Economic Forum Gender Gap, we are ranked number six in the world among all countries and the only Asian among the top ten in the world in closing the gender gap. And we are the only Asian country and one of only six countries in the world to have closed the gender gap on both education and health. And if you look at who is outranking us in the top 6, it’s New Zealand the the four Scandinavian countries, and then comes the Philippines.

So indeed it is a group that we should be very proud of as becoming a member, the top 6 in gender parity. (applause)

What puts us in the top 6? We are number one in gender parity, or in fact, gender equality in the world in terms of the literacy rate and enrollment in primary, secondary and tertiary education. In fact, more females enroll in schools than males and less females drop out. Our females have a slight edge over our males in both simple and functional literacy.

There is also a gender gap in scholastic achievement but in favor of girls. And the gap widens in favor of the girls as the children move up to higher grades in elementary school.

No wonder we end up leading the world on gender equality among managers and professional and technical workers.

The number of women in the labor force has increased as well because of the better education that the women are getting than the men.

Women dominate the civil service at the technical level.

We lead in gender parity among legislators and senior officials. Four out of 24 Senators are women and our two beautiful Soroptimist are two of the 54 of the 239 members of the House of Representatives. Five of 15 Supreme Court Justices are women. And our nation has entrusted its top leadership to a woman twice within 15 years. (applause)

What also makes us number 6 in the world is that on health, we are number one in gender parity on life expectancy. In fact, Filipinas live longer than Filipino men. (laughter)

And most recent demographic surveys indicate a decline in the maternal mortality ratio.

I mention all of these because I want to thank the Soroptimist for contributing to these manifestations of women's rights.

For example, because we have awarded one of your beneficiaries with regard to education. And because of the work that Soroptimist has done in education, you have helped close the gender gap in education. You have helped close the gender gap in health and helped reduce maternal mortality because you have a good health program in place and women's health is among your top concerns.

Thank you for the medical missions you regularly send to your adopted barangays. Thank you for what I understand is the success of your Breast Cancer Awareness program.

Well, one of our beneficiaries is also an example of... awardees is an example of your training activities. You have helped increase the labor force participation of women through your technical-vocational courses that the clubs offer to make unskilled women economically productive and able to enter the wage labor force.

And over and above that our third awardee, though not a beneficiary, is an example of what you have done to promote women’s human rights not only by advocacy against women and child trafficking but also I know about Soroptimist role since I was Vice-President in promoting Women’s Humans Rights through your assistance to the PNP's Woman and Child Protection Desk. (applause)

Indeed, we have a common vision. You as an NGO and we us government. Our vision is based on a strong and growing economy. It’s the central pillar we have labored to create to help guarantee peace, order and stability in our country. And it’s paying off -- we have the strongest economy in 30 years, the peso is strong, investments are up and we are close to balancing our budget.

Thank to the tax reforms that our two beautiful Soroptimist Congresswomen help to enact into law.

The results of our efforts come none too soon. As we all know, you are educated women. You all know that there are global clouds on the horizon that are driving up the price of oil and food, particulary rice.

A combination of factors in the whole world including spiralling petroleum costs; increased demand from countries like China and India; negative climatic conditions probably due to climate change; record low closing stocks therefore decreasing investment over the years in productive agriculture all over the world; encroaching urbanization all over the world and because of climate change and trying to mitigate the use of oil and gas which contribute to climate change; the diversion of agricultural land for bio-fuels to reduce climate change. All of these have all acted together in the world to drive up the price of all food especially rice.

The typical reaction is for exporting countries to husband their own stocks because prices are going up even in the exporting countries. Thailand and Vietnam are selling their rice at home higher now than we are selling our NFA rice in the Philippines. So they have to contain their own inflationary tendencies while importing countries make all efforts to buy their food not only for their normal requirement, but also to stock up and increase the national security stock, what we call the buffer stock. And even locally, traders, importers and even families also tended to ‘stock up.’ All of these lead to a shortage which has been further exacerbated all over the world by panic situations and hysteria created by the media and political opponents in various countries.

This year some destinations will not get to buy what they want. It will not be for lack of funds, but just the sheer unavailability of the rice. Traditional relationships are a key element as sellers are forced to choose between hordes of willing buyers with open wallets. So buyers who bought early are the only ones with rice. Only those who come to the party early leave with party favours. Thank goodness the Philippines is one of them. (applause)

How did we become an early arrival in the party? Well, on the issue of rice management -- this is a global problem that we have seen coming. And I thank the Secretary of Agriculture and the NFA for plugging this to me way before it really happened. So we have worked to head it off for some time now. Our response is based on three fundamental needs:

One, to ensure supply. So, we have reached out to Vietnam and Thailand long before the shortage hit. And we had invested heavily in production efficiencies and new strains like the hybrid rice which is now a household word in agriculture.

Two, to make sure distribution of rice gets to the people who need it most – efficiently and cost-effectively. To this end, we have moved to utilize distribution through the churches and faith organizations, and the schools when classes start in June, in addition to our own government distribution network.

Lastly, we must be vigilant that unscrupulous traders do not price gouge and exploit the situation. We are making sure that anyone caught robbing the people of rice is punished.

Well, we have American visitors here. The American statesman Adlai Stevenson once said, “that a man who is hungry is not a free man.”

Hunger mitigation measures are important in a democracy if we really want to have freedom. And they consist of supply side and demand side measures.

On the supply side, as I said earlier, we must increase food production and enhance the efficiency of logistics and food delivery. Our agricultural modernization program -- and again I thank Congress for funding this -- has allowed us to increase our rice production by more than the population growth rate of 2.04 percent.

On the demand side, we are challenged to put more money in poor people’s pockets. That’s why your training program to enable women to have jobs is so important. We are challenge to promote good nutrition. We are challenge to promote birth spacing because even if our rice production is growing more than our population we have been importing rice since the Spanish times and we have not yet close that gap in a sustainable manner. We are thankful, as I said earlier, that your training programs help put more money in poor people’s pockets.

And as you continue to help our women find their true strength in health, in the environment, in education, in human rights and in economic and social development, I hope that in this trying times for the world, the Soroptimist will also take up the challenge of promoting good nutrition and birth spacing. The ultimate winners of the combined program of your health program combined with nutrition and birth spacing will be the Filipino people and the Filipino women.

And so therefore in congratulating the Soroptimist on the occasion of your convention and the turnover of Linabelle to her successor. Together let us work to assure that in this great democracy of the Philippines where women’s rights have been quite well-promoted not only by government but by groups like yourself. Let us make sure that all women, children and men are fed and therefore free to live with dignity and liberty.

To all Soroptimist in the Philippines, Congratulations and more power to you! (applause)