Office of the Vice President : Press Release

Refer to: Ms. Dale Zapata
83321148/8334507

VP NOLI: WHAT IS IMPORTANT IS THE FILIPINO PEOPLE’S ASSESSMENT OF MY JOB
21 September 2005

I believe you cannot make an objective and credible assessment of a situation based on a few casual conversations.

I was elected by the Filipino people and they have given me the mandate to lead. They have already made a judgment of my competence and capability when they chose to vote for me as their Vice President. What I would give importance to is the Filipino people’s assessment of my capability to lead our country and they have again spoken in the recent Social Weather Station Survey.

(In a recent SWS survey, 74% of the respondents are confident that Vice President De Castro is capable of governing the country and has the highest satisfaction rating among top government officials with 60% of Filipinos satisfied with his performance.)

As Vice President, I know my job. Right now, I am focusing on managing the housing sector, an area that is critical to our economy. I have also been assigned to prepare the groundwork for the construction of Northrail Transit which will boost the economy in Luzon. There is no day that I don’t hold dialogues with the squatters for their relocation arising from the construction of the railway.

Although the job of managing foreign affairs is the exclusive prerogative of the President, I do participate in crafting that policy through my membership in the Cabinet and in the National Security Council. In those discussions, I stress that any policy should consider the interest of the poorer sections of our people.

I adhere to the foreign policy of the President that is based on our national interest and also the interest of our hundreds of thousands of Filipino overseas workers.