Speech by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. At the Wreath-laying Ceremony in Honor of the Late President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr.

Thank you very much for the introduction from our 1st District Representative Congressman – oh, I’m sorry, Majority Floor Leader – Congressman Sandro Marcos. [applause]

Nandito rin siyempre ang ating deputado ng Segunda Distrito, Congressman from the second district, Congressman Angelo Barba; our newly installed Governor, Governor Cecilia Araneta-Marcos; [applause] I would also like to greet the Commander of the 5th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army, Major General Gulliver Señires; Batac City Mayor, Mayor Markee Chua; of course, all the mayors, vice mayors, councilors, members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan ng Ilocos Norte; we also have very many guests from the political leadership of Cagayan, of Pangasinan, of Isabela, at nandito silang lahat, pasalamatan natin at sila’y nakarating para sa ating [applause] pagsasama dito sa pag-ugnay sa ating pagdiriwang ng 108th birthday ng aking ama; the provincial and government officials, employees, residents of Batac; of course, First Lady Louise Araneta-Marcos; fellow workers in government; distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen; and of course, the most special guest of all is our – tama ‘yung sinabi ni Gov, our forever First Lady, First Lady Imelda Marcos. [applause]

Naimbag nga bigat kada kayo amin. (Good morning to all of you.)

And first of all, I would like to thank all of you to have taken the time to join us as we celebrate the 108th birthday of my father here in Batac.

It is a very – as you can imagine, it is a very, very important day for the Marcos family because we remember the greatest of all of us, President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos.

Whenever we come and commemorate the life of Ferdinand Marcos, whenever we remake – we go back and relive the life – the life of service of Ferdinand Marcos, not only when he was President, but through his entire life, what we always can see and what is always spoken of is the great legacy that he has left us.

It is a legacy of service. It is a legacy of sacrifice. It is a legacy wherein he made it very clear to us, that if you are going to be a good Ilocano, if you are going to be a good Filipino, then you must be willing to sacrifice everything, including your life for the Filipino, for the Philippines. [applause]

We must always remember that to provide good serv – to be able to bring good service to our people, then that is – that we’ll need, that we must remember, we must be motivated by the lessons that he left with us. The lessons that we must exercise good judgment and always, always side with the national interest, in the interest of Filipinos.

In everything that we do, we must be motivated by a true commitment to service, and a true – it must be driven by a true love of every single Filipino and a love for the Republic of the Philippines.

These are the many, many lessons that we must maintain always our dignity and we must always respect the dignity of every Filipino. And not only respect the dignity of every Filipino, but we must fight for the dignity of every Filipino.

We will not allow for any great power, any person, to humiliate or to put down any Filipino. [applause] We must also always remember that we must do the right thing – that despite it is – despite the difficulties, we must always find ourselves on the right side of history.

I always remember when I was a young – I was still a boy, and he would constantly say, “Do not take – never take the easy way out.” In other words, make sure that what you are doing is the right thing no matter how difficult it is, no matter that there is a way that you – “Sige, okay lang. We will just – if that’s the way things are done, we will just go with the flow,” ika nga. And that was something that was anathema to all of his thinking and all of his policies.

And another lesson that we learned from – I was about to say the “old man” kasi ganoon ang – that is how we referred to him when he was alive.

And another lesson that we learned from him is that we must always maintain our own dignity and the dignity of the country. And we must always continue to sacrifice that it – and to remember that sometimes the best thing to do, the most honorable thing to do is the hardest thing that you have to do.

But that is a sacrifice that we make and that is the commitment that we have to the service of Filipino people.

So, when we remember all of these lessons and the very, very important and very, very wide-ranging and deep legacy that Ferdinand Marcos left to us, what we now – those of us who have been – who are still here, and still hold his memory in reverence, what we need to do is to make ourselves worthy of that legacy, worthy inheritors of that legacy. That we must also live up to the standards that he set for us. That we must always continue to remember what we are doing, and that what we are doing is not for ourselves. What we are doing is for the country. What we are doing is for the Filipino people.

And only then, can we say that we are the proper inheritors of such a legacy. Only when we have shown that we have met the standard that he set for us when he was alive and he continues to set for us in his memory, that is the only time that we can say, yes, we can continue his legacy.

But this is not a job that is done by doing one good thing, two good things, three good things. This – we are only worthy of that legacy if we live a life of service, if we live a life of commitment, if we live a life of sacrifice for our people.

If we continue to think of ways to help our people, one of the many – one of the many things that he often would tell me, “Do not go by the path that is well-trodden. Make your own way.” Because if you follow other people, you will end up in just the same place.

So, that if you want to bring – you want to bring progress to the Philippines, if you want to bring a better life to Filipinos, you must find your own way, you must find your own path.

And that is the most important lesson – in that we cannot continue to just do as we refer to it now “business as usual,” just go and continue what has always been done.

We must continue to use our skills, our intelligence, our strengths, so that we can find new ways to be of service to the Filipino.

So today, as we remember the life of Ferdinand Marcos, and we look to his legacy, what we can – what we must now remember – remind ourselves is that, are we – we must ask ourselves, are we worthy of such a great legacy? Are we worthy of such an important legacy? Are we worthy of such a deep legacy?

We will only be that if we can say that we have given our lives to the service of the Filipino. And that is the ultimate lesson that we must learn and to live by when we think of Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Sr.

Thank you very much and good morning. [applause]

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