My Three-Year Journey
(Inaugural speech delivered during the Inaugural Session of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan, Province of Northern Samar, July 6, 2007)
Today, I am privileged to join the members of this august body, the honorable lady and gentlemen of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of our beloved province. I take pleasure in taking steps with them in this three-year journey of service towards the amelioration of the lot of the Nortehanons and the acceleration of the multi-sectoral development of Northern Samar. As a neophyte member of this Council, I have an ambivalent feeling of what the days ahead have in store for me. I look at it with apprehension but with determination to master the requirement of the job. I therefore take the rhythm of this journey with approbation and elation for the rare opportunity it offers me to make a difference in the lives of our constituents.
The days ahead are the most propitious time for us to reexamine the conditions of the Nortehanons. We shall take a second look at the recent past to learn the lessons it had to offer. As we look back, we shall recognize both our achievements and our failures hoping that they would contribute to a better understanding of the situation and condition of our province and consequently lead to a more efficient crafting of more effective reform initiatives. We shall look into what we have done and failed to do even as we shall delve deeper into the reason or reasons why such conditions exist.
The road ahead points the way for us to render ideals and practices obsolescent by transforming them into their opposites through achieving and rejecting their promises. We will usher in the onset of new perceptions and novel actions making new ideals possible. Our sense of reality is too keen to be violated by moribund ideals, too forward-looking to be too long satisfied with the comforting arrangements of the present, and thus we must move from the known to the unknown, for there lies the more humane future, for there lays the idealistic core of our mandate. We must move from the realm of dreams through the valley of the practical and useful. Yes, but how we arrive there is our decision, our challenge and our responsibility. And in the going and in the arriving our task is to tirelessly transform the past and create and re-create the future. We shall endeavor to reshape Northern Samar to the forms of our vision.
It would be a vision that readily responds to the anguish of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta who said that many people are hungry not for lack of food, they are hungry for lack of human love. Many people are thirsty not for lack of water, they are thirsty for lack of human compassion. Many people are unclad not for lack of clothes but for lack of human dignity. We are in the maelstrom of the social condition of our people but the way is open for us only if we will be compassionate in the crafting of the product of our efforts. Compassion and understanding, coupled with definite actions, will make possible a better Nortehanon. Thus, for us we will do this not because of duty but because our people expect them from this august body.
We cannot reach the goal we set ourselves to achieve without the support of all Nortehanons. Thus, we dedicate this day not only for expressing our thanks and honor the members of this body but also a day marked for a new beginning for a much better and more ardent partnership for a good cause, that we have imagined and could now be in the realm of reality.
Let us, therefore, join hands in the noble mission of improving the life of the Nortehanons through more effective and responsive legislation we will craft. We shall bridge the realm of the things possible and let the idea of impossibility exists only in the mind. Let us therefore join hands since together we can make a difference, and together we can forge a new beginning. Let us make the lilting song of John Lennon our anthem in our three-year journey. Like him, “let us imagine that there are no possessions… No need for greed or hunger. Let us imagine all the people sharing the entire world. Imagine all the people living in peace. You may say I am a dreamer, but I am not the only one. I hope someday you will join us, and we will live as one.”
Thank you.