Finally, a fresh start

At long last, Congress has completed their canvassing and has confirmed the newly elected leaders of this country, Noynoy Aquino and Jojo Binay.

The Filipinos clearly voted for the yellow team. Iba na ang may pinagsamahan as they say in Tagalog - the voters seem to have remembered that Binay was always yellow even as he joined the party of Erap. Check out Cory’s public appearances and most likely, Binay would be in the same photos as well, very very close to Cory. Will the yellow tandem of Noybi, as Chiz Escudero called them, provide the inspiring leadership and inspired governance in the service of the Filipno people, especially the most needy?

Will the yellow team allow for this country to shine and bask in the sunshine of honesty and sustainable self-sufficiency? Will our people and our country raise their heads proudly during their term and will every Filipino truly believe that the Filipino is worth living and dying for?

The yellow team, however, is not made up only of Noynoy and Binay.

The 15 million and more voters as well as all those who believe in change and all those who believe that our nation can turn around from corruption and poverty to greater heights of morality and sustainable sufficiency comprise the yellow team. All others who voted for other candidates who sincerely want to join hands towards meaningful change for our country are also part of the yellow team.

The yellow team may have been partisan till the last vote was canvassed. However, with the proclamation of the elected leaders, the yellow team should cease to be just party-based; the yellow team now becomes partisan for all Filipinos, for the whole nation. Let the yellow team stand for sunshine and light to guide our country and our people towards real change.

Which means, every Filipino should start asking themselves, from today, what they can share to make genuine positive change a reality for our people, for our country.

We have our ancestors who built the majestic rice terraces as our model. On their own initiative, and based on pure voluntarism, they built and completed the grand terraces not only for themselves, but for all other generations after them. They not only built a structure that would provide them food on a sustainable basis. They left for all Filipinos a very lasting legacy of pride and dignity: That together, Filipinos can independently take care of themselves and even of generations beyond them. That together, Filipinos, with much cooperation and diligence, can build structures that rise up to the skies with their own bare hands. That Filipinos have the resources that they need not only to survive for a day but across centuries, with the proper knowledge, appropriate technology, unity, and persistent, diligent and proud work ethic and practice.

And so today, with hope and much prayer for a better tomorrow, and with much faith in the power, honesty and nobility of the Filipino people and their spirit as demonstrated by our ancestors who built the terraces as well as our other indigenous brothers and sisters all throughout our country who survived centuries with their simple lives but rich and proud culture, finally, let us move on with a fresh mandate to start anew once again.

Together, let us seize this occasion to thank the Lord and with His grace and power, and in unity with all our kababayans here and abroad, and from today, start the rebuilding of a nation that rises up and raises up our people to the highest heavens!

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