Maraming salamat, Secretary Puno sa pagpakilala at salamat sa iyong trabaho para sa merger na ito.

Speaker Boy Nograles, thank you very much also for this very, very important merger in the Cordillera; Senator Migz Zubiri, secretary-general of the party, congratulations also; and of course as Speaker Nograles said, Congressman Maurice Domogan, thank you for going all over the Cordillera to promote this merger the way you went all over the Cordillera in 2004 to make sure that your presidential candidate, me, would win in the Cordillera. (applause)

Governors and members of the Mayors' League, our various Congresspersons who are here today, our different officials both of LAKAS-CMD and KAMPI, other government officials, ladies and gentlemen, congratulations kadakayo amin... kadatayo amin tatta. (applause)

Dakkel nga panagbaliw iti istorya dagiti pagilian iti maaramid no dagiti madaydayaw nga lalaki ken babbai, ket agkakadua para ti maysa nga noble cause. Iti panagkaykaysa ti pigsa iti LAKAS-CMD ken ti KAMPI, iti dua nga kapigsaan nga partido iti Pilipinas, iti mangsusulong ken mangiturong iti pagilian tayo tapno maikadua iti First World status dagiti progresibo nga pagilian no sumangpet ti husto nga edad dagiti kayan-anak tatta. So we thank you because our unity will more strongly pave the way to bring our country to First World by the next generation.

Kagabi, kausap ko yung mga MOPC (Manila Overseas Press Club) at binalita ni Tony Lopez, yung kanilang chairman o presidente, na sinabi ng Goldman Sachs, within 20 years, makakasama nga ang Pilipinas sa mga mayayaman na bansa, so our dream will be coming true. (applause) But we can do that if we maintain our solidarity and make sure we promote the right policies between now and 2010 and beyond.

Tunggal maysa, iti LAKAS-CMD ken ti KAMPI ket dagiti nangrungruna ken kapigsaan nga partido iti pulitika iti pagilian. No agkakaysa da, aglalo nga mapa-extend tayo ti kangrunaan nga papel tayo iti pulitika ken panangpasayaat iti nasyon, ken iturong iti pagilian tayo papan ti progreso nga ekonomiya.

Kalpasan na, awan ti agpayso nga diperensya ti ideology dagiti plataporma tayo. Para ti LAKAS-CMD ken ti KAMPI. Ti napigsa nga partido ket adda iti sentro ti stabilidad ti pulitika nga kadua kadagiti susi, it is stable, democratic ken progresibo nga pagilian nga supsuportaan iti pinagpigsa nga umili.

No pay kasta, patuloy ti panangdingngeg tayo kagaditi kadua tayo. It is even more important for us to be wholly together because due to the world spikes in the price of fuel and food, and the slowdown in the Western economies, we are in an uncertain era, navigating uncharted waters.

National food self-sufficiency for the Cordillera is so crucial because you supply 70 percent of the vegetables to the major markets of our country. National fuel conservation, both of them, food self-sufficiency and fuel conservation are now entrenched among the first principles of statecraft.

As we ponder these issues, the first imperative is to listen. To listen to our own partymates, to listen to the cry of our constituents for succor and support. To ponder the call of well-meaning sectors for longstanding policies to be reviewed. To lend our ears to one another's insights, united by a singular wish to ease the pains and address the concerns of the ordinary Filipinos who voted us into office.

We have been listening, pondering, lending our ears, taking action, harnessing all our resources.

We have heard our people burdened by soaring rice prices, and we responded positively and decisively. I understand, rice has gone back down somewhat to 35 pesos. In India, rice is 95 pesos per kilo; Thailand, P56; Vietnam, P67; Singapore, P45. All much higher than our P35. And aside from our commercial P35, we have kept rice for the poor at 18.25 pesos per kilo at a cost of eight billion pesos and still counting. Indonesia and Malaysia subsidized their rice also but at P25.30 for Indonesia and P27 for Malaysia, higher than our P18.25 by a mile.

For jeepney drivers and commuters squeezed by the quadrupling of the cost of diesel, we have fought kotong and colorum to boost the income of drivers, while keeping fare increases to one peso, the cost of one text message. Speaking of text messages, I was just in communications, I was just in La Union a few weeks ago because PLDT just finished its gateway, international gateway to make sure that whenever there are weather disturbances around the region, we will continue with our telecommunications. And I suspect one reason why they put that 2nd or 3rd gateway for our country here in the north is because of the progressive, very progressive ICT industry and call center business that is taking place now here in Baguio. Congratulations! to the Cordillera. (applause)

Balancing the budget this year would be a laudable milestone in our fiscal turnaround, but not if it puts a millstone around our necks. Thus, even before we heard the call to review our policies, we already did so. Months ago, we said that we may need to defer a balanced budget in the challenging global environment. We declared our willingness to allocate as much as 75 billion pesos on social spending. And if things improve next year, we will return to our target.

Sa madaling salita, dinig at dama natin ang hinaing at panawagan ng ating mga constituents at tumutugon tayo, gamit ang kaban ng bayan.

The global crises did not catch us unprepared or without reserves, thank God and thank our LAKAS-KAMPI majority in Congress.

You and I made hard decisions -- hard on our people, unpopular with big business -- but good for the country, as events have shown.

Our preparations now shield our nation from the worst effects of the worldwide food and fuel crises as I illustrated with the difference in price of rice in our country and in other countries.

We spent the last two years preparing for such world crises in two ways: First, by increasing food productivity. Second, by increasing the ability to buy food with bigger incomes and smaller income tax bites. Starting this month, those earning 200,000 pesos a year or less don't have to pay income tax. Again, thanks to our partymates in Congress. (applause) By passing the law on the exemption of minimum wage earners from the income tax, you have provided them an extra 12 billion pesos of disposable workers' income.

With the zero tariff on oil from last month, our pump prices are also lower than many of our neighbors. Philippine diesel is P55.90, I understand. Thailand, P60; New Zealand, P67; Hong Kong, P71; U.S., P60.

Our bold fiscal reforms have also raised more billions for development without relying on outside loans, as in decades past. And we are very, very happy that here in the Cordillera, foreign loan or no foreign loan we will be working on the Halsema Highway – (applause) Baguio, Bontoc to the Rice Terraces. With our own resources, we are building more roads. For instance, the Kibungan-Kapangan and Baguio, that's not in foreign funding. We build ports and other infrastructure, ports including airports. We're building a beautiful airport in San Fernando, La Union. We were about to close the Baguio Airport when that airport is completed because Texas Instruments and many of the other factories want to locate in Baguio and they need flat land. But we hear the cry of our leaders in the Cordillera, don't close the airport yet. (applause). Only I ask you, help me find a flat land so that those investors will still continue to invest in the Cordillera.

These roads open wider areas and more opportunities for new wealth and new jobs. And I don't only mean roads in the Cordilleras but also roads to the Cordilleras. We have built the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Road. Tarlac portion is going to reopen -- it open and close again for repairs -- it will reopen, I understand, this month but what is also important is that the private sector found our business climate good enough to build on a BOT basis a road from Tarlac to Rosario, La Union so that it will be easier to come to the Cordilleras. (applause) All these opened a way for new jobs, all towards a self-sufficient, self-reliant, strong republic as mentioned by Speaker Boy Nograles.

We can also spend billions more on health and education, and to train and retrain our workforce.

So we remain committed to the course we have taken. The best solution is one that has worked.

We have come too far, made too many sacrifices on the hard but wiser road taken to reverse now and give up enduring strengths for popular but counterproductive short-term gains. But we can continue to exercise political will only if we have the political strength that comes from the unity of our two very strong parties.

In deliberating on the best solutions to our people's travails, we won't agree on everything. But we must try our best to agree within LAKAS and KAMPI.

It is easy to understand why many would want to see taxes on oil and electricity removed. But we have to carefully address some hard questions.

If VAT on oil and power is lifted, how would we replace about 80 billion pesos in revenues, mostly used for the poor? Including the farm-to-market roads that have to built in the uplands like the Cordillera to increase more our productivity.

VAT boosted investor confidence. Interest rates for 91-day treasury bills went down from 7.7 percent to 2.92 percent after VAT. The peso, from P56 to $1, strengthened to P40.20 before bad world economic news brought it back to P45. And we're talking about all of these investors who want to put up call centers here in Baguio or who want to put up their factories if they can find flat land here in the Cordilleras. Wouldn't lifting VAT erode their confidence, and accelerate the rise in interest and exchange rates and raise the cost of living even more? In other words, with or without VAT, with the world being the way it is, prices will go up. But we would rather that those prices will somehow partially go to taxes that we can spend on the poor than that those high prices will just go to the payment of interests which will go to creditors and foreign creditors at that.

And won't scrapping the VAT on energy benefit mainly the well-to-do, because it is the well-to-do who consume 84 percent of oil and 90 percent of power, while depriving the poor of billions in programs now funded by VAT if we remove the VAT? In other words, wouldn't it strip the vast majority of our people the means to ride out the world food and energy crises?

But wherever our discourse leads us, in other words, the national discourse, we in LAKAS-KAMPI must be one in assuring our people of one thing: our LAKAS-KAMPI administration will continue to harness all the resources at our command to help ordinary Filipinos pressured by cost and calamity, while still pursuing needed investments in people and in infrastructure. That must be our message to our people.

Seguraduak nga sumangpet iti aldaw no caano nga ti kinapobre ket naikkaten iti pagilian tayo, ken amin dagiti kailian tayo ket maikadua iti productive workforce iti natalna, progresibo ken maipannakkel nga pagilian tayo. Dayta nga aldaw ket sumangpet babaen ti nagkadua nga trabaho dagiti kadua iti LAKAS ken iti KAMPI.

Tayo, nga kadua ti partido ket ready, we are ready for that day. We should be ready for that day where we can really be part of the First World. Ready not to accept it but ready to bring it about through our work. Patuloy nga pasayaaten ken papigsaen tayo iti mission ken vision ti partido tayo para kadagiti umay nga tawen.

Daytoy ket panawen iti nalaing nga reflection. Masapul nga dagiti leaders iti dua nga kadakkelan nga partido agkakadua tapno maamo-an no kasano nga papigsaen ti sistema met ti pulitika.

Nagkadesisyon iti LAKAS ken iti KAMPI ditoy Cordillera, ken kablaawan kayo iti desision yo, congratulations to all of you! (applause) Simmampet kayon iti decision. I am so impressed when I was invited to come to this consultation for a merger. I said, I don't want to go to consultations, I want to go when there's a merger. And they enumerated all the mergers that they have been decided -- very impressive indeed! And I congratulate all our leaders in the Cordillera for such selflessness.

Pasayaaten tayo iti pigsa ken siglat iti partido LAKAS-KAMPI. (applause) Lalaingen tayo iti panagtrabaho para ti maysa nga napigsa nga ekonomiya, papigsaen iti panag-adal ken panan-alaga ti environment. Agtitinulong tayo tapno makaited iti makan ti tunggal lamisaan ken ti trabaho ti tunggal Pilipino.

Agbiag iti LAKAS ken iti KAMPI! Congratulations to all of you!
Mabuhay LAKAS-KAMPI! (applause)