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I've worked with Filipino technicians, and they are, I think, among the best. I'm looking forward to visiting the Philippines, maybe for a vacation or to shoot a movie.

Our educational system should make the Filipino fit not just for whatever jobs happen to be on offer today, but also for whatever economic challenge life will throw in their way.

I don't see myself as any different from all the other Filipinos who have gone abroad looking for opportunity, to be a nurse, a labourer, a maid or a prostitute.

Apart from boosting our long-term economic strength like other Asian economic powers, Philippine companies expanding overseas and going beyond our comfort zones, or going to some uncharted territories, will help sharpen our management skills.

There is that potential of the expats coming back to the Philippines. But sadly they are no opportunities, no incentive for them to come back home. Successive governments have, in fact, been training them to export them rather than working on the economy to welcome them home.

College education is the great Filipino dream. But in a world of rapid technological change, getting a job or keeping it depends as much on how well one reasons as how well one uses his hands.

Throughout Philippine history, it's the immigrants who built fortunes and, in the process, helped build Philippine economy.

Tourism is a crucial industry that could employ millions of Filipinos, skilled and unskilled alike, cross those 7,107 islands of the Philippines. From the current projection of 3.3 million tourist arrivals in 2010, our aim is to eventually attract 6 million tourists. In the process, we expect to create 3 million jobs in the next six years.

The Philippines is strategically located and blessed with the greatest resource: its people, who are hard-working, very loyal, and very adaptive.

I ask the educational system, the parents, the church, and pillars of the community to help shape a new culture of honesty, patriotism, respect, discipline and service for young Filipinos.