Rizal Hall, Malacañang
August 15, 2008

His Highness Sheikh Nasser Al-Sabah, Prime Minister of Kuwait; distinguished guests,

ladies and gentlemen.

Assalamu alaikum and welcome to the Philippines!

This is to reciprocate the warm and cordial reception we received when we visited Kuwait last December and other visits to Kuwait prior to this. So, we hope that Your Highness has had a very good stay here in the Philippines since yesterday.

That visit of mine to Kuwait, Your Highness, was a humanitarian mission. It was to ask His Royal Highness the Emir for clemency for two Filipinos sentenced to death by Kuwait's courts. And the Filipinos thanked His Royal Highness and your government, Your Highness, for commuting the death sentences on Marilou Ranario and May Decena. And so it is with joy that we now receive His Highness the Prime Minister of Kuwait.

Earlier today, His Highness and his delegation and our delegation had a very good and candid discussion on areas of bilateral engagement. And we witnessed the signing of three cooperative agreements in the fields of oil and gas, tourism and health. And we are very grateful that we will be issuing a joint statement as well on the transfer of sentenced persons.

Other agreements will be forthcoming because His Highness has said that we must move very fast and make decisions very quickly in order to heighten our relationship with each other.

Kuwait hosts the third largest Filipino community in the Middle East. There are over a thousand Filipinos there. And we thank His Highness for saying that there's actually no quota on Filipinos going to Kuwait because we have all skills, from domestic helpers to scientists, and I think we can have one million Filipinos in Kuwait and they will still be very happy with the presence of our compatriots there. Thus, we look forward to the Implementing Guidelines of our Memorandum of Understanding on labor and manpower development. Kuwait has started investment in the Philippines. The Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company has made enrobes in oil and gas exploration in the Philippines together with Shell. The Kuwaiti KGL Investment Company recently ventured into logistics as the latest member to our billion-dollar club. We welcome Kuwait's continued interest and trust in our economy. And today, His Highness, talked about many other areas of investment and joint ventures between our two countries.

Kuwait was the first Arab country to extend a developmental loan to the Philippines. It's biggest project is the 115 kilometers of road from Pagadian City through Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao to Cotabato City. And tonight, we have the presence of some of the congressmen through whose district this very long road passes.

Your Excellency, your visit gives a boost to our efforts to bring about long lasting peace

in Mindanao, just as our brothers in the Middle East look forward to a long lasting

peace in the Middle East. Yes, there are political dynamics. We are working to sort

them out.

The government will assume a supporting role and let non-government organizations supportive of the peace effort spearhead the discussions on the problematic concerns. We want to end the conflict that has claimed more than a 120,000 lives on both sides over the last four decades. This progress will be good for the people of Mindanao because in bringing peace and order to the island, it will create an environment that will attract much needed development assistance as well as foreign investment such as those from Kuwait that will create jobs and generate revenues that can be used to invest in new infrastructure, increase agricultural programs for which His Highness has expressed a very great deal of interest in behalf of the Kuwaiti business community and improve social services for the people including health services for which the Kuwaiti fund will now be one of our sources, a very important assistance. We thank Kuwait and all our friends and allies around the world who are already committed to helping us refocus local communities away from security issues and towards their economic future.

Once again, Your Highness, welcome and thank you on your mission to bring us good tidings of friendship and brotherhood.

Welcome to the Philippines! Mabuhay! (applause)