Opening Remarks
MBC General Membership Meeting
Ramon del Rosario Jr., MBC Chairman
21 January 2010, Thursday
The Peninsula Manila, Makati City

Our guest of honor and speaker Senator Benigno Aquino III,

Our other special guests Senator Mar Roxas, Senator Kiko Pangilinan, members of the Aquino family,

My colleagues in the business community,

Ladies and gentlemen,

A most pleasant good afternoon to everyone and welcome to the launch of the Presidential Candidates Series, a succession of fora organized by the Makati Business Club, with the support of other business organizations, that will feature the leading presidential candidates in the May elections.

The most critical elections in our nation's recent history are just under four months away, 109 days from today to be exact. With the start of the official campaign period fast approaching and the intensity of the electoral fray beginning to pick up, the Presidential Candidates Series gives the leading candidates for the presidency a unique opportunity to touch base with the business community and discuss at length and in detail their economic vision and platform of governance.

Unlike other fora that present the candidates as a group, where they are given a few minutes at most to explain their positions on highly complex issues, for the Presidential Candidates Series we are inviting the leading candidates to appear in separate meetings where they can take advantage of the audience's undivided attention to make a convincing case for their candidacy.

It is our great honor that the man who has been consistently topping all presidential surveys, including our own, has graciously accepted our invitation to be the Presidential Candidates Series first guest speaker. Soon after Senator Noynoy Aquino declared his intention to run for president under the Liberal Party in September last year, as we all know, he leapfrogged past all other candidates and quickly emerged as the frontrunner in the presidential race.

It is with a sense of nostalgia that we note that Senator Aquino's mother, our late beloved President Cory Aquino, also first unveiled the economic planks of her campaign platform at a joint membership meeting of the Makati Business Club, the Bishops-Businessmen's Conference, and the Management Association of the Philippines in January 1986. Before an overflow crowd, she pledged to “undo the evils institutionalized by the Marcos regime” in a landmark speech entitled “Building from the Ruins.” Today, 24 years later, while we may not have fallen back to the same depths of political and economic ruin wrought by the Marcos dictatorship, should Senator Aquino become our next president, he will need to confront challenges no less complex and difficult, not only because of the current administration's misrule and rampant graft and corruption but also due to the risks presented by the global economic environment today.

I am sure you are looking forward with great interest to hearing how Senator Aquino proposes to lead our nation through the rough and uncharted waters ahead, but just a short explanation on how our program will proceed this afternoon. After the senator's presentation, we will have a question-and-answer period where a panel of reactors will pose questions to the senator regarding his presentation. Our distinguished panel for today—and I ask them to please take their seats at the front when I call their names—is composed of Mr. Felipe Alfonso, MBC trustee and vice chairman of the AIM board of trustees; Mr. Rex Drilon, Ortigas and Company chief operating officer; and Mr. Peter Wallace, president of the Wallace Business Forum. We have also provided question slips in each table if you have any questions for Senator Aquino. The staff of the MBC secretariat will pick up the slips and turn those over to the panel of reactors, who will hopefully try to read as many of those questions as they have time for.

I anticipate a most enlightening discussion this afternoon. So without further ado, let us give a warm welcome to the man who has pledged before God and country: “Hindi ako magnanakaw.”