on June 30, 1992. At the time of his accession in 1992, he was the first and only
Protestant to date to be elected President of the Philippines, which has a majority-
Roman Catholic population, and the only Filipino officer in history to have held every rank in the Philippine military from Second Lieutenant to Commander-in-Chief. The first three years of his administration were characterized by an economic boom, technological development, political stability, and efficient delivery of basic needs to the people. He advocated party platforms as an outline and agenda for governance. He was the first
Christian Democrat to be elected in the country, being the founder of Lakas-CMD (Christian-Muslim Democrats Party). He was one of the most influential leaders and the unofficial spokesman of
liberal democracy in Asia.
Domestic policies Philippines 2000 Ramos' policies were organized around a
socio-economic program dubbed "Philippines 2000", which envisioned the Philippines achieving a
newly industrialized country status by the year 2000 and beyond. The five points of the program were: • Peace and Stability • Economic Growth and Sustainable Development • Energy and Power Generation • Environmental Protection • Streamlined Bureaucracy Contrary to expectations as a former military general, Ramos made peace with the country's various armed rebel groups, kickstarting the process by creating a National Unification Commission (NUC) and appointing
Haydee Yorac to be its chair. Upon the recommendation of the NUC, Ramos eventually decided to grant amnesty to the rebel military officers of the
Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) led by
Gregorio Honasan and Proceso Maligalig. Ramos was instrumental in the signing of the final peace agreement between the government and the
Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) led by
Nur Misuari in 1996. Although he battled Communist rebels as a young lieutenant in the 1950s, Ramos signed into law the
Republic Act No. 7636, which repealed the
Anti-Subversion Law. With its repeal, membership in the once-outlawed
Communist Party of the Philippines became legal. It was also during his presidency that the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), which provided a mechanism to monitor human rights abuses in the course of operations was signed between the government and the CPP on 16 March 1998.
Economic reforms During his administration, Ramos began implementing economic reforms intended to open up the once-closed national economy, encourage private enterprise, invite more foreign and domestic investment, and reduce corruption. Ramos ended the government's monopoly over the skies and opened aviation to new players. Ramos was also known as the most-traveled Philippine President compared to his predecessors with numerous foreign trips abroad, generating about worth of foreign investments to the Philippines. To ensure a positive financial outlook on the Philippines, Ramos led the
4th Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Summit in the Philippines in November 1996. Under his administration, the Philippines enjoyed economic growth and stability. The
Philippine Stock Exchange in the mid-1990s was one of the best in the world and his visions of '
Philippines 2000' that led the country into a newly industrialized country in the world and the "Tiger Cub Economy in Asia".
Power crisis At the start of Ramos' tenure, the Philippines was experiencing widespread blackouts due to huge demand for electricity, the antiquity of power plants, the abolishment of the
Department of Energy, and the discontinuation of the
Bataan Nuclear Power Plant during the Corazon Aquino administration. During his State of the Nation address on July 27, 1992, he requested that the
Congress enact a law that would create an Energy Department that would plan and manage the Philippines' energy demands. Congress not only created the department but gave him special emergency powers to resolve the power crisis. Using the powers given to him, Ramos issued licenses to independent power producers (IPP) to construct power plants within 24 months. Ramos issued supply contracts that guaranteed the government would buy whatever power the IPPs produced under the contract in U.S. dollars to entice investments in power plants. This became a problem during the
1997 Asian financial crisis when the demand for electricity contracted and the
Philippine peso lost half of its value. Ramos personally pushed for the speedy approval of some of the most expensive power deals, and justified signing more contracts despite warnings from within the government and the
World Bank that an impending oversupply of electricity could push up prices, a situation that persists in the Philippines up to the present. Individuals linked to Ramos lobbied for the approval of some of the contracts for
independent power producers (IPPs), which came with numerous other deals, including lucrative legal, technical, and financial consultancies that were given to individuals and companies close to him. Among the deals tied to IPP projects were insurance contracts in which companies made millions of dollars in commissions alone. All the IPP contracts came with attractive incentives and guarantees. Every contract was designed to give IPP creditors some degree of comfort in financing ventures that would usually involve huge capital and risks. Most IPPs were funded by foreign loans secured with a form of government guarantee or performance undertaking, which meant that the Philippine government would pay for the loans if the IPPs defaulted. The Ramos government continued signing IPP contracts even after the end of 1993 when the power crisis was considered solved. The World Bank came up with a report in 1994 warning that power rates would rise if the government continued to enter into more IPP contracts that would mean excess power. The World Bank questioned the ambitious projections of the government on economic growth and power demand from 1994 to 1998. It also warned that the power generated by private utilities' IPPs could duplicate those of the
National Power Corporation and create an overcapacity. The World Bank said that the factors created considerable uncertainty in power demand, like substantial overcapacity, particularly under take-or-pay conditions and would require considerable tariff increases that would be unpopular with the public.
Death penalty While campaigning for the presidency, Ramos declared his support for reinstating the death penalty. Capital punishment was abolished for all crimes in 1987, making the Philippines the first Asian country to do so. In 1996, Ramos signed a bill that returned capital punishment with the
electric chair (method used from 1923 to 1976, making Philippines the only country to do so outside U.S.)
"until the gas chamber could be installed". However, no one was electrocuted or gassed, because the previously used chair was destroyed earlier in a fire and the Philippines adopted the method of
lethal injection. After his presidency, some people were put to death by this means, until the death penalty was abolished again in 2006.
Foreign policies Spratly Islands during a state visit in 1998. In early 1995, the Philippines discovered a primitive
PRC military structure on Mischief Reef in the
Spratly Islands, off the coast of
Palawan. The Philippine government issued a formal protest over the PRC's occupation of the reef and the
Philippine Navy arrested sixty-two Chinese fishermen at Half Moon Shoal, eighty kilometers from Palawan. A week later, following confirmation from surveillance pictures that the structures were of military design, President Fidel Ramos had the military forces in the region strengthened. He ordered the
Philippine Air Force to dispatch five
F-5 fighters backed by four jet trainers and two helicopters, while the navy sent two additional ships. The People's Republic of China had claimed that the structures were shelters for fishermen but these small incidents could have triggered a war in the
South China Sea.
Migrant workers protection A perceived weakness of his administration was the situation in handling migrant workers' protection, a very major issue in the Philippines, as there are millions of Filipinos abroad throughout the world serving as workers in foreign countries, and their remittances to relatives at home are very important to the Filipino economy. On the eve of his 67th birthday on March 17, 1995, Ramos was on a foreign trip when
Flor Contemplación was hanged in Singapore. His last-minute effort to negotiate with Singapore President
Ong Teng Cheong and Prime Minister
Goh Chok Tong failed and Ramos' return was marred with protests after his arrival in
Manila. The protests also caused the resignation of Foreign Affairs Secretary
Roberto Romulo and Labor Secretary
Nieves Confesor from the cabinet. He immediately recalled Philippine ambassador to Singapore Alicia Ramos and suspended diplomatic relations with Singapore and created a special commission to look into the case, which was in part an effort to try to rescue his sagging popularity. The commission was led by retired
Supreme Court Justice
Emilio Gancayco. As recommended by the Gancayco Commission, Ramos facilitated the enactment of Republic Act No. 8042, better known as the "Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995", which was signed into law on June 7, 1995. Learning from the lessons of the Contemplación case, Ramos immediately ordered Philippines Ambassador to the
UAE Roy Señeres to facilitate negotiations after learning of the death penalty verdict of
Sarah Balabagan in September 1995. Balabagan's sentence was reduced and she was released in August 1996. After tensions cooled off, Ramos restored diplomatic relations with Singapore after meeting Goh Chok Tong on the sidelines during the 50th anniversary of the United Nations in New York City.
1997 Asian financial crisis The
1997 Asian financial crisis, which started in Thailand, was a major blow to the end of the Ramos administration, with him stepping down with a negative GDP growth. The economy was hit by currency devaluation with the
Philippine Peso dropped to ₱45.42/$1 in January 1998 from ₱26.40/$1 in July 1997. The same was true for the
Thai baht,
Malaysian ringgit, and
Indonesian rupiah. Growth fell to about −0.6% in 1998 from 5.2% in 1997, but recovered to 3.4% by 1999. It also resulted in the shutdown of some businesses, a decline in importation, a rising unemployment rate, and an unstable financial sector.
Clark Centennial Expo Scandal Supposedly, one of his notable contributions to the Philippines was the revival of nationalistic spirit by embarking on a massive promotion campaign for the centennial of Philippine Independence celebrated on June 12, 1998. However, charges of alleged massive corruption or misuse of funds blemished the resulting programs and various projects, one of which was the Centennial Expo and Amphitheater at the former
Clark Air Base in
Angeles City, supposedly Ramos's pet project. The commemorative projects, particularly those undertaken at Clark, were hounded by illegal electioneering and corruption controversies even years after the Centennial celebrations. Clark Air Base at that point was already completely free of American interference and therefore conceived as a suitable venue for
Independence Day. In 1992, all American military bases were transferred to Philippine control after the Senate rejected the military bases agreement with the United States. Later on it was revealed through a special report by the
Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) that the projects relating to the Expo site not only revealed the extravagance and inefficiency of the administration, but also served as a convenient vehicle to affect election fund-raising for the LAKAS political party of Ramos, which came at the expense of tax-payers and was in direct violation of the
Election Code. The
Centennial Expo Pilipino project, intended to be the centerpiece for celebrating the 100th anniversary of the country's independence from Spain, also earned extensive criticism for being an expensive
white elephant project that disadvantaged the government at the cost of or 1.7 percent of the country's 1998 national budget. Six ranking Ramos cabinet members and officials, headed by
Salvador Laurel (former vice-president), chairman of the Centennial Commission, were cleared by the
Ombudsman and the
Sandiganbayan. Ramos appeared before a Congressional Committee in October 1998 to help exonerate said officials of any wrongdoing.
Charter change During his final years in office, Ramos tried to amend the country's
1987 constitution through a process popularly known to many Filipinos as
charter change or
cha-cha. Widespread protests led by Corazon Aquino and the
Roman Catholic Church stopped him from pushing through with the plan. Political analysts were divided as to whether Ramos really wanted to use charter change to extend his presidency or only to imbalance his opponents as the next presidential election neared. He also intended to extend the term limits of the presidency to remain in power but his political rival
Miriam Defensor Santiago went to the Supreme Court and negated extending the term limit of the president, which preserved democracy at the time.
Administration and cabinet ==Post-presidency (1998–2022)==