The Philippines was with the U.S. in the Second World War, in the Korean War, in the Vietnam War, and now in the war against terrorism.
The Philippines and the U.S. have had a strong relationship with each other for a very long time now. We have a shared history. We have shared values, democracy, freedom, and we have been in all the wars together in modern history, the World War, Second World War, Cold War, Vietnam, Korea, now the war on terrorism.
In 1995, we had evidence of the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden being in the Philippines, living in the Philippines. We had evidence of front organizations set up in the Philippines. And we uncovered evidence about, which would help the U.S. with - about the perpetuators of the World Trade Center bombing.
I was invited by President Bush to come to the United States on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the mutual defense treaty.
In a global arena, what our businessmen need in order to be competitive is transparency and a level playing-field.
Before September 11, we were fighting terrorism in our southwestern Philippines, and it was a lonely fight. However, we were able to contain it now in one island in that part of the Philippines. But after September 11, and after the creation of the global coalition against terrorism, now we have allies, and I believe now it will easier with allies.
The military is very constitutionalist, and I have my faith in them and in the cooler heads of the people.
It is the civilian part of the politics that is very, very bad, and we have to change that.
I am very grateful to our Muslim population. One of the things we've been doing is stepping up our inter-faith dialogue with the Muslim population. And I think that helped very much in their support for me.
