On reforestation, first and foremost, the rate of deforestation must stop. Our forests, in 2006, are going at the rate of 2,600 sq. km. per year. This trend has to be reversed. By 2015, the rate of deforestation should be brought down to only 500 sq. km. per year. And by 2030, we should have a greener Philippines, with a net reforestation rate recovering 1,500 sq. km. per year. In other words, even with our best efforts, the situation is going to get worse before it turns better, at last.

The planting of trees, including in our cities, should be carried out also in line with the measure of complying with global standards for air and water quality. By 2015, 50 percent of our cities should be in compliance; and by 2030, this rate should move up to 75 percent.

In our rural communities, the provision of adequately modern – albeit simple and fully adapted to our local circumstances – systems for water supply, sewerage and garbage disposal should reach 30 percent of our people in those communities by 2015. By 2030, 70 percent should have such access.

With respect to our road network, we now have only about 150,000 kms. By 2015, this number should rise to 200,000 kms., and further to 300,000 kms. by 2030. Moreover, this increase in roads should be done strategically and systematically. Most of them would be around a few ports and harbors that should be modernized and brought up to international standards so as to serve as the main lifelines to the rest of the world (let alone within our own archipelago). These few modern, internationally competitive ports and harbors should serve as anchors for new, wellplanned modern communities, designed to handle cost-effectively traffic flows and the other demands of higher-quality urban life.

Additional roads should also connect existing cities with their feeder areas so that inter-connection between them becomes more efficient. Such inter-connection should be complemented by newer and higher levels of technology, such as through telecommunications, which should be tapped to integrate our many scattered communities, even across islands, more tightly and effectively together. Through these inter-connections, public services can and should be provided to all communities in our archipelago by 2030 (with the rate rising from 60 percent in 2015 to 100 percent in 2030).

As noted, pursuing these targets and eventually achieving them would require big, bold, long-term, systemic thinking about the national community we should be building. All key institutions in our society have to work closely with one another so they jointly help achieve these ambitious targets. They have a big stake, after all, not only in the pursuit of these targets, but also in their partial realization by 2015 and more fully in 2030.