President Benigno S. Aquino III delivers his speech during the Meeting with the Filipino Community in Rome at the Leptis Magna I & II Function Room of the Ergife Palace Hotel for his Official Visit to the Italian Republic on Thursday (December 03, 2015). (Photo by Joseph Vidal/ Malacañang Photo Bureau)
ROME—When President Benigno Aquino III gets back in Manila this weekend, the first thing he’ll do is look up the company that manufactures a high-tech toothbrush being exported to France.
He wants to find out if he had brushed his teeth the right way, a straight-faced Mr. Aquino told a crowd of some 500 Filipinos here, saying he found out about the ingenious device while attending the climate change summit in Paris earlier this week.
“This shows great engineering. Imagine, technology squeezed in a tiny thing like a toothbrush,” the President told the crowd of mostly overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) on Thursday. “The ones who make it, and I take great pride in it, are fellow Filipinos. Designed in France, this high-tech toothbrush is manufactured in the Philippines,” he added.
The toothbrush has an app on a smartphone that indicates if its users are brushing their teeth the proper way. The President did not name the company but said it was one of several Philippine companies he learned about at the climate change summit.
Purely for export
He described the company as one that produces prototypes and studies the manufacturing process before products are mass-produced. The toothbrush was apparently “too high-tech” that neither he nor his Cabinet secretaries have seen one yet, Mr. Aquino said.
“It seems that this (toothbrush) is (manufactured) purely for export. That’s why when I get back on Sunday—because I will arrive on Saturday—on Sunday, I will ask to find this (company) and (check) its manufacturing facility,” President Aquino said, adding in jest that the toothbrush made him “conscious” about whether he had brushed his teeth the right way earlier in the morning.
That toothbrush manufacturer illustrates the great strides that the country’s industrial sector had made under his administration, President Aquino said in his speech before the Filipino community here.
While the President went on to cite the economic gains under his administration, a number of his listeners expressed disappointment about the Chief Executive’s failure to mention the OFWs and the government’s policies on them.
The good news
Taking a swipe at the Philippine media, Mr. Aquino said he wanted to balance the mainly negative news being reported.
“Most likely, the news that you receive isn’t always complete … allow me to share the good news,” he said.
The President said that last week, just before he left for his working visit to Europe, the economy marked a six percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the third quarter of the year.
For the past five years, Mr. Aquino added, the Philippines has had an average of 6.2 percent GDP growth, the fastest five-year average growth in the country’s economy in the last four decades.
The President also cited the lower unemployment rate, the boom in infrastructure projects, a healthy tourism program and the arrest of fugitives and communist rebel leaders.
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