Manila: Philippine President Benigno Aquino III said on Monday the government will stop wastage of public money in infrastructure and other government deals.
In his first state of the nation address, Aquino said his government has received interest from local and foreign investors willing to enter into private-public partnerships for infrastructure projects, among others.
"What is clear now is any change will come from ensuring that wastage and excess will end. From now on, we will stop the wastage of public money," he told a joint session of Congress.
Aquino said he will ask Congress to pass the "fiscal responsibility" law that will require identifying a revenue source for every legislation that calls for some form of spending.
The administration also supports removing some fiscal incentives, Aquino said.
The nation needs an anti-trust law, amend the procurement law and the support a "whistle-blowers" bill, Aquino said.
In the days leading up to his speech to both houses of parliament, Aquino said he would reveal a wide array of alleged misdeeds by former president Gloria Arroyo and her aides that he insisted bled the national coffers dry.
Aquino said there were at least five major anomalies by Arroyo's government that his administration had uncovered since assuming office on June 30, and that he would disclose them to parliament.
"The problems left a lot of us gasping for breath at what has been done," he said.
Aquino alleged massive corruption by Arroyo's government had left his administration severely hamstrung in how it could go about improving the lives of the nation's 92 million people, a third of whom live in dire poverty.
"The work ahead will not be easy over the next few years. Nearly all the funds intended for use over the next few months have been stolen," Aquino said.
Aquino won national elections in May by a landslide after campaigning on a promise to fight corruption that has long afflicted the Philippines, but which he alleged worsened during then Arroyo's time in power.
He has repeatedly said that only by ending corruption, which pervades all sectors of society, can the nation win its battle against poverty.
Aquino has in recent weeks vowed to have Arroyo, who was required by constitutional term limits to step down, investigated and possibly prosecuted for her alleged corrupt activities.
Arroyo took the unprecedented step for a sitting president of running for a seat in the House of Representatives in the elections, a move widely seen as part of a strategy to shield herself from prosecution.
She easily won the seat representing her home province and was meant to sit in parliament to hear the State of the Nation address.
However, Arroyo's allies said she would skip town on Monday to join her husband in Hong Kong for a medical appointment.
