Inaugural Address
of
His Excellency Ferdinand E. Marcos
[Delivered at the Quirino Grandstand, Manila on December 30, 1965]
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| Image from Joselito Angeles |
Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. Vice‑President, Mr. Speaker, My Countrymen:
Sa bisa ng inyong makapangyarihang hatol
at sa pamamagitan ng mabiyayang tangkilik ng Dakilang Maykapal, narito
ako ngayon sa inyong harap sa pinagkaugalian nang ritwal sa pagtatalaga
at pagsumpa sa tungkulin ng isang bagong halal na Pangulo. (By your mandate, through the grace of
the Almighty, I stand here today in the traditional ritual of the
assumption of the Presidency.)
Sa kapasiyahan ninyong ito ay muli pa
ninyong pinatunayan na matatag at matibay ang pagkakatanim ng mga ugat
ng demokrasya sa sinapupunan ng bansang ito. At sa bisa ng
kapangyarihang ipinagkaloob sa inyo ng mga batas ay naisasagawa nang
mapayapa at maayos ang pagsasalin ng kapangyarihang pampamahalaan. (By your mandate, once again you have
demonstrated the vitality of our democracy by the peaceful transference
of governmental authority.)
It is but fitting and proper that this
traditional ritual be undertaken on this sacred ground. For sixty‑nine
year ago today, a young patriot and prophet of our race fell upon this
beloved soil. He fell from a tyrant’s bullet and out of the martyr’s
blood that flowed copiously there sprung a new nation.
That nation became the first modern
republic in Asia and Africa. It is our nation. We are proud to point to
our country as one stable in an area of instability; where ballots, not
bullets, decide the fate of leaders and parties.
Thus Kawit and Malolos are celebrated in
our history as acts of national greatness. Why national greatness?
Because, armed with nothing but raw courage and passionate intelligence
and patriotism, our predecessors built the noble edifice of the first
Asian Republic.
With the same reverence do we consider Bataan, Corregidor and the Philippine resistance movement.
Today the challenge is less dramatic but
no less urgent. We must repeat the feat of our forebears in a more
commonplace sphere, away from the bloody turmoil of heroic adventure –
by hastening our social and economic transformation. For today, the
Filipino, it seems, has lost his soul, his dignity and his courage.
We have come upon a phase of our history
when ideas are only a veneer for greed and power in public and private
affairs, when devotion to duty and dedication to a public trust are to
be weighed at all times against private advantages and personal gain,
and when loyalties can be traded in the open market.
Our people have come to a point of
despair. I know this for I have personally met many of you. I have heard
the cries of thousands and clasped hands in brotherhood with millions
of you. I know the face of despair and I know the face of hunger because
I have seen it in our barrios, huts and hovels all over our land.
We have ceased to value order as a
social virtue. Law, we have learned successfully to flaunt. We have
become past masters at devising slogans for the sake of recorders of his
history but not for those who would live by them in terms of honor and
dignity.
Peace in our time, we declare. But we
can not 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. It is a mandate that imposes a change of
leadership in this country, and to me, as your President, this mandate
is clear – it is a mandate not merely for change. It is a mandate for
greatness.
For indeed we must rise from the depths
of ignominy and failure. Our government is gripped in the iron hand of
venality, its treasury is barren, its resources are wasted, its civil
service is slothful and indifferent, its armed forces demoralized and
its councils sterile.
But we shall draw from our rich resources of spiritual strength that flow from this place of martyrdom.
We are in crisis. You know that the
government treasury is empty. Only by severed self‑denial will there be
hope for recovery within the next year.
Our government in the past few months
has exhausted all available domestic and foreign sources of borrowing.
Our public financial institutions have been burdened to the last
loanable peso. The lending capacity of the Central Bank has been
utilized to the full. Our national government is indebted to our local
governments. There are no funds available for public works and little of
the appropriations for our national government for the present fiscal
year. Industry is at a standstill. Many corporations have declared
bankruptcy. Local manufacturing firms have been compelled to close or reduce their capacity.
Unemployment has increased. Prices of
essential commodities and services remain unstable. The availability of
rice remains uncertain. Very recently the transportation companies with
the sanction of the Public Service Commission hiked their fares on the
plea of survival.
I, therefore, first call upon the public
servants for self-sacrifice. Long have we depended upon the people. In
every crisis, we call upon our citizens to bear the burden of sacrifice.
Now, let the people depend upon us. The economic viability of the
government and of the nation requires immediate retrenchment.
Accordingly, we must install without any delay a policy of rigorous
fiscal restraint.
Every form of waste – or of conspicuous consumption and extravagance, shall be condemned as inimical to public welfare.
Frugality with government funds and
resources must be developed into a habit at every level of the
government. High public officials must themselves set the example.
One of the most galling of our inherited
problems is that of lawlessness. Syndicated crime has been spawned by
smuggling. The democratic rule of law has lost all meaning and majesty,
since all men know that public officials combine with unscrupulous
businessmen to defraud government and the public – with absolute
impunity. The sovereignty of the republic has never before been derided
and mocked as when the lawless elements, smuggling syndicates and their
protectors, disavow the power of laws and of our government over them.
This is the climate for criminality. Popular faith in the government
deteriorates.
We must, therefore, aim quickly at the
establishment of a genuine rule of law. We shall use the fullest powers
of the Presidency to stop smuggling and lawlessness.
I, therefore, call upon all to join
hands with me in maintaining the supremacy of the law. To those flaunt
the law, I say: this is my constitutional duty and I am resolved to
perform it. But it is not mine alone but yours. For whether Filipino or
alien you survive under the mantle of protection granted by our laws. I
am pledged to execute the law and preserve the constitution of our
republic. This I shall do. And if need be I shall direct the forcible if
legal elimination of all lawless elements.
Our social policy will seek to broaden
the base of our democracy. Our forefathers built a democratic republic
on an extremely narrow social and economic base. The task of
our generation is to broaden this base continuously. We must spread
opportunities for higher incomes for all. But we shall encourage
investment to insure progressive production – the true answer to our
economic ills.
Our people sought a new administration in the expectation of a meaningful change – certainly a bolder, more courageous approach to our problems.
They must have believed that we can provide this new outlook, and perhaps the passion for excellence – the motive force for greatness.
We shall provide this approach, the
necessary change of pace, the new outlook that places large demands and
large challenges before the nation. The human person is unique in
creation. Of all organisms, it is he that develops in proportion to the
demands made upon his abilities. That is true of individuals and I hold
it to be true of nations.
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Recently, we have come to realize that economic planning is as essential for freedom as political planning.
Before today we had squandered the
energies and resourcefulness of our people. In the government we saw a
crippling hesitancy and timidity to face the facts of our times and to
boldly provide the initiative.
We cannot afford to rest on the shock of
our perceptions, nor on the outrage even of our painful admission of
the facts. We shall have to restore into our life the vitality which had
been corroded by our complacency.
In international affairs, we shall be
guided by the national interests and by the conscience of our society in
response to the dilemma of man in the 20th century.
The Filipino today lives is a world that
is increasingly Asian as well as African. Asia claims one‑half of all
humanity, and this half lives on a little over one‑sixth of the earth’s
habitable surface. Africa’s millions are also now coming to their own.
Recent events have shown the willingness of our Asian friends to build a
bridge to us. We can do less than to build strong foundations at our
end.
Today, as never before, we need a new
orientation toward Asian; we must intensify the cultural identity with
ancient kin, and make common cause with them in our drive toward
prosperity and peace. For this we shall require the understanding of
ourselves and of Asia that exceeds acquaintance; we require the kind of
knowledge that can only be gained through unabating scholarship on our
histories, cultures, social forces and aspirations, and through more
active interaction with our friends and neighbors.
What threatens humanity in another area
threatens our society as well. We cannot, therefore, merely contemplate
the risks of our century without coming into any on our own. Wherever
there is a fight for freedom we cannot remain aloof from it. But
whatever decision shall have to make shall be determined by our own
interests tempered by the reasonability of that patriotic position in
relation to the international cause.
This nation can be great again. This I
have said over and over. It is my article of faith, and Divine
Providence has willed that you and I can now translate this faith into
deeds.
I have repeatedly told you: each
generation writes its own history. Our forbears have written theirs.
With fortitude and excellence we must write ours.
We must renew the vision of greatness for our country.
This is a vision of our people rising
above the routine to face formidable challenges 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.
This vision rejects and discards the inertia of centuries.
It is a vision of the jungles opening up
to the farmers’ tractor and plow, and the wilderness claimed for
agriculture and the support of human life; the mountains yielding their
boundless treasure, rows of factories turning the harvests of our fields
into a thousand products.
It is the transformation of the Philippines into a hub of progress – of trade and commerce in Southeast Asia.
It is our people bravely determining our own future. For to make the future is the supreme act of freedom.
This is a vision that all of you share
for our country’s future. It is a vision which can, and should, engage
the energies of the nation. This vision must touch the deeper layers of
national vitality and energy.
We must awake the hero inherent in every man.
We must harness the wills and the hearts
of all our people. We must find the secret chords which turn ordinary
men into heroes, mediocre fighters into champions.
Not one hero alone do I ask from you – but many; nay all, I ask all of you to be the heroes of our nation.
Offering all our efforts to our Creator, we must drive ourselves to be great again.
This is your dream and mine. By your
choice you have committed yourselves to it. Come then, let us march
together towards the dream of greatness.
