Today, the scenario may not be all that bad, but we are faced with the challenged to restore the economy to growth, and to strengthen the country's competitiveness in an increasingly independent global market.
I have come to believe that the root of many of our problems is our general lack of a sense of civic duty-our propensity to value self, family, clan, and regional groups above country and people. Put differently, the root of most of our problems is our lack of appreciation for our common destiny as a nation, our lack of national discipline. Discipline is wat we need. Discipline is what will make us a great nation.
There are two qualities that you must posses in order to survive in today's competitive world. These are love of country and self-discipline - qualities, although primordial, seem to be lacking among our young people today.
I challenge our countrymen to serve God and country before oneself, in the same manner that as Filipinos, we should also encourage the gifts of knowledge, love, and aspiration among our people. The greatest challenge of our educators is to continue producing successful persons out of our students based on christian values and ideals.
Duty , honor, country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create haope when hope becomes forlorn.
Unhappily, I posses neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean. The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.
But these are some of the things they do. They build your basic character. They mold you foyour future roles as the custodians of the nation's defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourslef before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future yet never neglect the past; to be serious yet never to take yourself too seriously; to be modest to that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength. They give you a temper of the will, quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of an appetite for adventure over love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what's next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.
to be continued...
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