Ferdinand Marcos

“ Today, that faith is challenged and it will ask of everyone of us, perhaps especially your humble servant as president of the republic, not only to sacrifice, but perhaps the ability to stand attacks upon not only your lives and property, but most valuable of all, your sacred honor.
Today, the concept of our democracy is under utmost challenge, not only by other ideologies, but by some of our own people who seek to win, perhaps by force and intimidation, the power that they have failed to get and to win in a fair, honest and clean election. ”

“ We have seen ourselves emerge from a long night of national travail, lived through an eight and a half-year period of crisis government, and brought at its close the structure of our new Republic.
Now we are into a new stage of national evolution where our new mechanisms of government and all the lessons we have learned from the last decade must now confront the challenges and promises of a new decade, a new age, a new time.
We look to the state of our nation today, and we are not dismayed but encouraged. We have exorcised the demons and the goblins of the past. ”

“ It shall remain the paramount concern of our government to unite our country behind the cause of justice and dignity, to lift those who live in conditions of poverty, ignorance and lack of opportunity, so that together they may form one united political community. And regardless of differences in our views, we shall strive to be one nation, in which one will be free to disagree with another without undermining national unity. We shall be a nation with one purpose, no matter how differently individuals express themselves. ”

“ Will I, then, apologize that in facing the crisis born out of the past, this leadership must yet meet the pressing problems of the present? Shall we regret vainly that no nation is endowed with the capacity for solving all important problems simultaneously? Shall we lament the fact that the fate of men and nation’s is to solve their problems according to an order of precedence? ”

“ As President of the Republic, I saw it as my clear and inescapable duty to meet the rebellion against our duly constituted government, the anarchy in our social life, the paralysis of the economy, the disintegration of our bureaucracy.
With God’s clear light and our people’s vigorous support, we involved the full powers of the Constitution to meet the threats to our Republic and build a new society.
Man in his presumption has always claimed the advances we call civilization as his handiwork. ”

“ We have seen our nation aborted at birth, tossed in the sway of empires, gripped in inresolution and drift, paralyzed by disunity and strife, and hostage to chaos and instability. Our national independence since the beginning has been partly cast in light, partly in shadow.
There are, to be sure, imperfections in our institutions, and as these are run by men, there are more imperfections still. But I choos to regard these as redeemable; we can still win the few, the faltering, recalcitrant few, to our government. ”

“ We were to become in time a single political community. We became one nation. God must have meant this to be. Long before some of the peoples of the continental land masses of Asia ever thought of waging sovereignty claims maintaining nationhood, we already bore the flag of nationalism and self-government. Long before some of the peoples of Asia marched to the cry of liberation and independence, we had already made our sacrifice. Revolution broke out in our islands long before it caught the imagination of our Asian brothers.
We sought to establish a Republic for we had a revolution. ”

“ We must translate our growth into a state of high morale among people. Growth is rendered in statistics and changes in the landscape, changes in the cities, in the roads, in the infrastructures. But more than this, we need a new vigorous climate of confidence and hope, a passionate renewal of faith and devotion, which sustains armies and populations even in the midst of siege.
And, while our policies decree sweeping changes in our institutions and programs, we have lagged behind in the fundamental change on which the New Society is truly to be forged. ”

“ Abroad, we were looked upon as another nation lost to the forces of social disintegration and revolution. But the nation has survived and endured.
And we are a society today whose hopes are raised not just towards meeting the crisis of the hour, but to the challenges of the rest of the decade and beyond. Regardless of the many uncertainties that international life hold out today to many nations, we approach with confidence the many problems that confront us, and we know our national prospects to be better than they have ever been in the past. ”

“ I respect an ideological opponent more than the treacherous dissembler who makes it look as if he has joined our ranks and then hits us from behind and in the back. Those who believe in their own ideologies contrary to ours at least enslave in the name of deliverance. But the enemies who lurk behind government desks or move in the corridors of power eat and erode the gains made by the patient toil, the sacrifice, the discipline and the solemn faith of men and women who have put all their dreams and hopes in our cause. ”

“ For discipline is the other face of achievement.
But I hear the strident cries of protest against self-discipline from the gilded throats of the privileged and the cynically articulate— they who have yet to encounter the implacable face of poverty. I hear the well-meaning cries of the uninformed and the naive. To them I address this plea. Let them share the burden with the grace and courage of the poor. Let them find common cause with the people. Too long have we blamed on one another the ills of this nation. ”

“ There are indelible accomplishments to be seen in the record—the surge of the national economy, the rise in incomes, the perceptible improvement of individual welfare, the new civility in our social life, and the respect we have gained in the family of nations; and over and above all, the feeling of confidence and pride that you now see and feel demonstrated and manifested throughout the land by our people. But what is most compelling about these achievements is the fact that they are gains that have not ceased ad do not cease to grow. They point us irreversibly forward, towards larger goals. ”

“ Peace in our time, we declare. But we cannot even guarantee life and limb in our growing cities. Prosperity for all, we promise. But only a privileged few achieve it, and, to make the pain obvious, parade their comforts and advantages before the eyes of an impoverished many. Justice and security are as myths rendered into elaborate fictions to dramatize our so-called well-being and our happy march to progress.
But you have rejected all these through a new mandate of leadership. ”

“ Let us listen to the workers in our factories all over the land who have raised the productivity of our industries, and whose products today are being seen and bought in foreign lands.
Let us listen to our people—the teachers, the managers, the office workers, the public servants amongst us—all who have exerted themselves, all within their modest domain, to contribute something, even if it be but small, of themselves to lift up their country and their people. ”

“ The past ten years will be remembered as a period when the foreign policy of our country came into its own, when we irrevocably broke our long confinement to the vision of the world in terms of the cold war, when we opened ties with the communist and socialist world, when we made common cause with the nations of the Third World, when we forged the breakthrough with our Southeast Asian neighbors towards the building of a regional community, the ASEAN, and when we attained a place of pride and influence in the councils of nations. ”

“ I take occasion, therefore, to congratulate the barangays, their leaders and workers who have been instrumental in the success of our development program. Without them, all these achievements that I speak of would not be there. The momentum must be maintained; the momentum of achievement must be kept. We cannot lose our orientation nor our inertia of achievement and progress.
It is inevitable that we choose the road of development in meeting the challenges and uncertainties of the times. For it will not do merely to state that the present crisis is rooted in circumstances beyond our control. ”

“ We have by no means banished poverty from our midst, but we can certainly say that our people have not been denied equity in growth and participation in productive labor, and equal opportunity in education.
Now, let us go to foreign relations.
The exacting tasks of domestic problems have not turned inward the outlook of this nation. Side by side with our domestic programs for social, economic and political development, and integral to them, we have moved decisively to develop our relations with the rest of the world.
Throughout the world, change has been the theme of the decade. ”

“ Today, as I pass the halfway mark of my term of office, lam glad to report that in the year just past we have sustained the momentum of our advance; we have moved forward at an accelerated and accelerating rate.
Many grave problems remain and most of our people’s needs remain acute. But today we face them with the confidence of self-made success; we have lost our fear of the future; problems have become challenges and goals to action.
In terms of history two years is just a fleeting instant in the life of a nation. ”

“ I put it to you, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Batasan, that in this time of general pessimism in the global economic environment, the moment is opportune for decisive action on our part; that in the uncertainty of the times, the sure road for us is one of enterprise and daring; and that in this period of beginning for our New Republic, the business of development must be the agenda of our nation now. ”

“ For certainly, events have brought our democracy to a new kind of testing, testing as well as of challenge. The circumstances will not only test our courage, [but also] our devotion to duty and our commitment to democracy. Whatever be the challenges, whatever be the obstacles before us, I say to you as I say to everybody else that we will overcome.
Let us, in our faith in the Almighty and strengthened by a united people, in our sense of purpose and brotherhood... advance toward a future which will be bright and prosperous and, best of all, a future which is of our own making. ”

“ The people's initiative, their caring, and their imagination, as much as those of the government, will determine how far and how fast we can achieve the blessings of true democracy on our land.
But I do believe that our people have never been more prepared for this test of their communal life and for the effort that it demands. I believe that today we all see our problems and our opportunities more, clearly than we used to as tasks that are resolved not by a fever of words and hopes but by action patiently applied to them. ”

“ Fundamental to all this is the recognition that we are principally a private enterprise society which knows the value of private initiative but which at the same time has an egalitarian base, inasmuch as the New Society is basically a revolution of the poor. By adhering to this concept, we should be able to prevent the misuse of wealth, such as by brutalizing and degrading those who don’t have it.
The importance of the private sector, therefore, cannot be overemphasized. The private sector is the cutting edge, the most active element of change. ”

“ I lead this nation into a new decade, the decade of the seventies— a decade that is one of the most crucial in our history as well as in the history of Asia and of the world.
The world seeks to know whether man is indeed impelled by some strange instinct to self-destruction or whether its sciences on the relationships of men can catch up or overreach its natural sciences. ”

“ The problems we face if not solved may well wipe out our future and our Republic, and in their stead may rise an alien face, a gruesome future in which neither you nor I will have a place. So let us suspend the petty political quarrels for today, the nit-picking and the fault-finding, and let us join hands to save our nation— the Republic of the Philippines. ”

“ Under the influence of this spirit, we have started to re-examine our own narrow outlook on ourselves and the world; we have ceased to think of our­selves as a small and insignificant nation, a non-entity in world affairs; we have started to re-examine the time-honored postulates by which we lived during the past five hundred years, and have lifted up our eyes to wider horizons and more ambitious and peremptory goals. ”

“ The words of a great man and a great friend of the Filipino people, Pope Paul VI, should in this regard be taken to heart:
“There are certain situations whose injustice cries to heaven. When whole populations destitute of necessities, live in a state of dependence barring them from initiative and responsibility, and all opportunity to advance culturally and share in social and political life, recourse to violence, as a means to right this wrong to human dignity, is a grave temptation.” ”

“ To change their lives men must first change themselves. The challenge of nation-building is first of all a call to character-building.
It is the business of a free people to develop habits proper to freedom to be purposeful, active, energetic and strong. We must at the very least, continue the pace that has been set in the past two years, the pace and tempo that mark a nation of achievers.
Thus may our people achieve their own development and write their own story of nation-building. ”

“ There is no single forum in the whole of our government and our country which more fully exemplifies this process of a dialogue in our country than this, the Batasang Pambansa, the interim National Assembly. And it is here where we shape the course of our country and our nation, the course of the ship of state.
We are not rivals but partners in a common enterprise, and we are called upon by duty as representatives of the sovereign will of our people to lead in the fulfillment of national hopes and aspirations. ”

“ In these times of rupture—of a breaking of nations, of radical change in values, of sudden departures and great, perilous beginnings—we stand as a people and as a nation.
This nation stands, tested by adversity and deriving strength from it, sum­moning a fresh will from the continuing challenges that are the historical legacy of all struggling nations. ”

“ But it is the subtler assaults on public order and national discipline that must bear the greater weight of our concerns today. For these connote erosion in the program of reform, a softening of the will to change; and where these are seen conspicuously by the public, they contribute to the deterioration of morale and faith in social change.
With equal severity, people in private life must accept the burdens of the national transformation to which we have pledged ourselves. All must share with those in government and the masses the austerity demanded by the times. ”

“ Our people need less of men who will say the New Society is good but more of men who will contribute what they can to give meaning to our efforts and to our words.
This is why I feel, more than ever, the need for us to close ranks. To unite in the awareness that the gravest threat to our nation today is not the problem of rising costs (although this is a serious one, it may create a crisis) , but the more urgent and the more serious threat against our Republic today and against our New Society, is that of our slipping back into the mire of factionalism and selfish individual privilege. ”

“ We must renew the vision of greatness for our country.
This is a vision of our people rising above the routine to face formidable challenge and overcome them. It means the rigorous pursuit of excellence.
It is a government that acts as the guardian of the law's majesty, the source of justice to the weak and solace to the underprivileged, a ready friend and protector of the common man and a sensitive instrument of his advancement and not captivity. ”

“ The pattern of revenue utilization exemplifies the basic spirit of our national development program—the emphasis on the demoralization of wealth, the regionalization of growth, and the linkage of all sectors of the national eco­nomy. We seek in the plan the regeneration not of just one part, but of the whole society and the whole economy. And no region, no community, no individual has been left out from the compass of the entire development effort. ”