63 quotes found
"Inspired by the great plebeian, my father, President Diosdado Macapagal, promulgated the Land Reform Law to emancipate the peasant from a feudal bondage to the soil."
"In 1986 Filipinos peacefully reclaimed their civil liberties in the people power revolution. Under the leadership of Corazon Aquino, we reaffirmed our commitment to freedom and democracy on a mere stretch of highway — with hardly a drop of blood shed or a shot fired in anger."
"Less Than Two Months After The State Of The Nation Address, On 9/11/2001, The World Changed. To the Basic Desires of Work, Food on Every Table, Home, and Education, We Add Peace."
"I am sorry."
"We have been fighting the longest running communist insurgency in history. We have been coming to grips with fundamentalist terrorism long before 9/11."
"The people want government that works for them at every level. They want good government that begins at their doorstep in the barangay, and does not end before the closed door of a bureaucrat in Metro Manila."
"On top of peace and investment, progress also demands good governance. I congratulate Donkoy Emano for the drop in reports of corruption for public contracts in Cagayan de Oro from 65% of firms last year to 38 this year. Also Rudy Duterte and the other leaders of Metro Davao led by Majority Leader Boy Nograles for a similar drop, 57% last year to 49 now. Things are coming together for Mindanao, a prelude to their readiness for eventual federalism."
"A president can be as strong as she wants to be."
"From Bonifacio at Balintawak to Cory Aquino at EDSA and up to today, we have struggled to bring power to the people, and this country to the eminence it deserves."
"Indeed, the 1960s was a time of radical change. So much was happening — in science and technology, religion, politics, culture, and society as a whole — and at a fast pace. Imagine how my curiosity was piqued by everything going on around me. If there was ever a time that I developed a love for learning, an ability to focus on responsibility, and to deliver on my own goals, it was then."
"Bill Clinton was my classmate. When the future 42nd President of the United States found out that Dad was president, he wrote his grandmother that his classmate was the first daughter of the Philippines! Half a century later, he wrote in our jubilee yearbook: "Our class produced three presidents, Alfredo Cristiano, whom I did not know, and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, whom I knew and liked.""
"The transition from academe to government was admittedly difficult. In the academe, I was an authority figure to my students. In government, I was servant to the public, sometimes equal to peers in the executive, but always outranked by those with mandates from the electorate. I learned to respect the civil service in deed as in thought."
"Johnny Ponce Enrile will surely go down in history as among the most formidable political figures of our time, truly a legend in his own time. To many, that legend is based on his role as the feared Secretary of National Defense during the martial law years era of President Marcos. In reality, through the sheer force of his intelligence, political skill and personal, he has grown beyond that legend to become perhaps the most enduring politician of our time, sometimes still feared, but always respected by friend and for alike for his political capability."
"As the events leading to EDSA Dos unfolded, former President Cory together with Cardinal Sin became my twin pillars of strength. She was a true mentor, for she had gone through it all before."
"One night early in my term as senator, an undersecretary of the Department of Public Works and Highways visited me at home. He asked me to nominate a contractor to handle my pork barrel projects, and I said I had none. An inherited staffer explained to me that her old boss used to get a commission from such projects, but I said I would not do that."
"Dirty politics has always been around, whenever and wherever there was a government to be won, with the spoils of power and patronage that come with it."
"Machinery is often of little value when the administration's standard bearer is behind in the surveys."
"E-VAT was the centerpiece of perhaps the greatest and most long-playing achievement of my presidency, fiscal reform management."
"Victory is a powerful word, but it often reeks of pride and hubris. Vengeance is sweet, but it is hateful. Vindication is my preferred word."
"The Philippines had to take the necessary bolder steps forward in the next six years. It was under this milieu that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo unveiled in her inauguration in 2004 a 10-Point Legacy that included gaming the budget deficit, providing sufficient infrastructure and efficient delivery of services, decentralized development and livelihood promotion, computerization of elections, and arriving at sustained national harmony."
"Land for the landless was the battle cry of the late President Diosdado Macapagal, which his daughter espoused and followed in her presidency. Her administration distributed millions of hectares in private, public and ancestral lands to landless farmers and indigenous communities."
"I have sat at the sumptuous tables of power, but I have not run away with the silverware."
"As you prepare to relinquish the duties and responsibilities of your high office, I send you my warm good wishes. I know that you must take great satisfaction in having served your country with such distinction in its highest office. The friendship of our two nations has grown even closer under your leadership. Mrs. Johnson and I recall with great pleasure the State Visit which you and Mrs. Macapagal made to our country and send you now our sincere affirmation of friendship and good will."
"It is true, and I am proud of it, that I once said, “I would rather have a government run like hell by Filipinos than a government run like heaven by Americans.” I want to tell you that I have, in my life, made no other remark which went around the world but that. There had been no paper in the United States, including a village paper, which did not print that statement, and I also had seen it printed in many newspapers in Europe. I would rather have a government run like hell by Filipinos than a government run like heaven by any foreigner. I said that once; I say it again, and I will always say it as long as I live."
"My loyalty to my party ends where my loyalty to my country begins."
"The Latin American people believed and feel that we Filipinos form past of that vast family, the children of Spain. Thus, although Spain ceased to govern those countries many years ago and although another nation is sovereign in the Philippines, those Latin-American peoples feel themselves as brothers to the people of the Philippines. It is the Spanish language that still binds us to those peoples, and the Spanish language will bind us to those peoples eternally if we have the wisdom and patriotism of preserving it."
"As archived on Gov.ph (Accessed 2015)"
"If no one is corrupt, no one will be poor."
"We also know that excellent public servants do not just transform a society; they inspire. Millions of Filipinos grieved when Jesse Robredo passed. For almost two decades, he served and led Naga with skill, compassion, and humility. These principles of his are the exact reasons we borrowed him from Congresswoman Leni and their three children, and from the Nagueños, so that he could become part of our Cabinet. This is why one of the hardest things I ever had to do as President was to deliver the news to Leni and their daughters, after the tragedy."
"Apart from grieving, I could not avoid blaming myself for what happened to Jesse. Maybe if I had not asked him to join my Cabinet, he would still be alive today. Maybe if he had remained in Naga, he would still be with us. Maybe there would still be a Jesse Robredo in public service today."
"But I also know that Jesse would not allow the transformation and righting of society to end with him. Jesse and I were only given opportunities to serve the country because of all of you. We cannot have just one face for transformation and change. We should not have to wait another hundred years before the next good citizen is born, before the next good Filipino rises to the occasion."
"At what point do you say, ‘Enough is enough’? Well, the world has to say it — remember that the Sudetenland was given in an attempt to appease Hitler to prevent World War II."
"Then, President Cory passed away, and Senator Noynoy spoke at her funeral. That is when we truly saw him."
""Ipaubaya natin ang kasaysayan sa mga propesor, sa mga nag-aaral tungkol sa kasaysayan ng Pilipinas. Kami hindi namin trabaho yun. Ang trabaho namin ay tingnan kung ano ba ang pangangailangan ng taong bayan ngayon." (Let us leave history to the professors, to those who study the history of the Philippines. It is not our job. Our job is to look at what the people need at present.)"
""In response to Ferdinand "Bongbong" Romualdez Marcos, Jr.'s call that teachers and students of history should make a judgment about the Marcos administration, we, the undersigned members of the Ateneo de Manila community, vehemently oppose and condemn the ongoing willful distortion of our history. We deplore the shameless refusal to acknowledge the crimes of the Martial Law regime. We reject the revision of history, disturbing vision of the future, and shallow call for "unity" being presented by Marcos Jr. and like-minded candidates in the 2016 elections."
"The Trustees of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines, representing the 1,425 CEAP member-schools, colleges, and universities, support the faculty of the Ateneo de Manila University in their call against the attempt of Ferdinand Marcos Jr to canonize the harrowing horrors of martial rule."
""Great danger now lurks behind a deceptive nostalgia for a past that never really existed—that the Marcos years were a period of peace and prosperity. This is patently Marcos myth and deception. Under martial law, the country was plunged into a climate of repression and plunder and then into a social crisis that exploded in the 1980s."
"I consider myself lucky that Emil Jurado taught me English for only one semester. I'm afraid to think of what my English would now be if he had taught me any longer. This is what I get for having been attentive during his class."
"The Japanese, the Chinese and other Asian countries speak their dialect (when dealing with other countries) -- I don't see why we Filipinos cannot speak our own dialect."
"On a scale of 1 to 10, I give myself 70 percent."
"“They threw at me not just the kitchen sink but also the toilet bowl.""
"Cleanliness starts in the toilet."
"The nation was awakened by that deafening shot."
"I am not embarrassed to tell you that I believe in miracles."
"By the grace of God and the unshakeable faith of the Filipino people, I am confident we shall pull through."
"In giving, we receive; in losing, we find; and out of defeat, we snatched our victory."
"With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the rights as God gives us to see the rights, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and for his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
"As I came to power peacefully, so shall I keep it. That is my contract with my people and my commitment to God."
"None of the good that we do is ever lost; not even the light in an empty room is wasted."
"I believed that nowhere could you find more effective cures for the ills of our country — such as the habit of oppression, the inclination to corruption, betrayal of the public interest — than in the blessings of democracy: freedom; rights; transparent dealings; and a government of the people by the people themselves."
"Let us rather be grateful to the nation and to the historical moment for the privilege we had of being heroes."
"I don´t know anything about the presidency."
"During Ninoy´s incarceration and before my presidency, I used to ask why it had always to be us to make the sacrifice. And then, when Ninoy died, I would say, ´Why does it have to be me now?´It seemed like we were always the sacrificial lamb."
"For the first time in the history of the world, a civilian population has been called to defend the military."
"People used to compare me to the ideal president, but he doesn´t exist and never existed. He has never lived."
"I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life."
"I firmly believe in the freedom of the press. And I accept the criticisms poured on me, painful as they are, as part and parcel of the hazards of public service, and conducive to its honest performance."
"It is my aim to add the distinction of shepherding our democracy through its first political succession, by clean and peaceful elections."
"While my power as president ends in 1992, my responsibility as a Filipino for the well-being of my country goes beyond it to my grave. A great part of that responsibility is to do the best I can today, according to my best lights, while I have the power to do it."
"Government often had to do what pressing realities compelled it. And if the government sometimes lacked better choices, it never lacked the sincere desire to do good."
"As President, I have never prayed for anything for myself; only for our people."
"I hope that history will judge me as favorably as our people still regard me because, as God is my witness, I honestly did the best I could. No more can be asked of any man."
"This is the glory of democracy, that its most solemn moment should be the peaceful transfer of power."