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Good morning and welcome to the Bank Marketing Association of the Philippines Forum entitled: The Crisis in Perspective: Is There Really Cause for Alarm.

Since the so-called global financial crisis hit us last year, a number of large multinational financial institutions went on the brink of collapse and needed to be bailed out. These caused a certain level of alarm among our banking public particularly on the soundness of the local banking industry and its capacity to absorb the extent of its exposure to those bailed out multinational financial institutions.

In spite of numerous statements issued by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas assuring the public of the banking sector’s stability, concerns from some depositors continue to persist.

As Bank Marketing Communicators, it is BMAP’s duty and responsibility to communicate to our banking public where the economy and, in particular, the banking industry, stand amidst the global slowdown. This is the vision behind this Forum. We aim to look at the crisis in the proper perspective. At the end of the day, we believe that there is really no cause for alarm, if only people are made aware of the real picture.

We have invited no less than the BSP Governor to deliver the keynote address. We are likewise honored to have the President of the Chamber of Thrift Banks to share with us the challenges faced by the banking industry today and the role it should assume to help sustain economic activities amidst a global slowdown. We are also honored to have ABS CBN’s Senior Vice President for News and Public Affairs, Maria Ressa, to talk about how media, in critical times like this, can strike a balance between transparency and responsible reporting.

BSP Deputy Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr. will later join our two speakers in the open forum and discussion which will be facilitated by BMAP Past President Alex Escucha.

Much as we would like to make our banking public aware of the real picture, we in BMAP, can only communicate to and cover a limited audience. This is why we invited our friends from media to join us in today’s Forum. We hope that after a thorough discussion on the issues confronting us and what the policy and regulatory body and the banking industry have done and are doing to cushion the effects of the crisis, our friends from media will help communicate these to the public.

We share our economic managers’ pronouncements that we have the capacity to ride out the challenges before us. We therefore encourage everyone to maintain a positive mindset and collectively, work together to move the financial system and the economy forward.

Thank you for coming and we look forward to a very fruitful discussion later.

Magandang umaga po.