Official Gazette for December 31, 1969: President Marcos started his new term as President of the Republic. Highlight of the President’s activities was his issuance of an official statement in which he made public his decision to give away his worldly possessions. Full text of the President’s statement follows:
Moved by the strongest desire and the purest will to set the example of self-denial and self-sacrifice for all our people, I have today decided to give away all my worldly possessions so that they may serve the greater needs of the greater number of our people.
I have therefore given away, by a general instrument of transfer, all my material possessions to the Filipino people through a foundation to be organized .and to be known as the Ferdinand E. Marcos Foundation.
It is my wish that these properties will be used in advancing the cause of education, science, technology and the arts.
This act I undertake of my own free will, knowing that, having always been a simple man, my needs will always be lesser than the needs of many of our people, who have given me the highest honor within their gift, an honor unshared by no other Filipino leader.
Since about a year ago, I have asked some of my closest confidantes to study the mechanics of this decision. Today studies have been completed, arid a foundation will now be formed to administer these properties and all funds that may be generated therefrom.
My wife, Imelda, is in full agreement, and wholeheartedly supports me in this decision.
Provisions will be made for my children, so that they shall be assured of satisfactory education and be prepared to meet their lifetime duties and endeavors.
For the moment, my most sincere hope is that this humble act shall set the example, and move to great deeds of unselfishness and compassion, many of our countrymen whose position in society gives them a stronger duty to minister to the needs of our less fortunate brothers and countrymen.”
Early in the morning, he relaxed a bit with former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi of Japan, Ambassador Toshiro Urabe, also of Japan, and Ambassador Jose Laurel HI, Philippine envoy to Tokyo, and others at the Malacañang Park golf course.
Refreshed, the President began his paper work, then at 9:30 knocked off to receive the special representatives of 44 countries to the Inaugural. He and the First Lady, Mrs. Imelda R. Marcos, greeted the guests as they were presented.
He then individually received Korean Prime Minister Chung II Kwon, former Prime Minister Kishi of Japan, Foreign Minister Gregorio Lopez Bravo of Spain, and U.S. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, in that order.
During the meeting with the Spanish foreign minister, the President was presented with a Katipunan battle flag and several bladed weapons used by the revolutionaries against Spanish troops.
Vice President Agnew gave the President a moon rock and the Philippine flag flown to and from the moon by the Apollo II astronauts. Astronaut Eugene Cernan, Apollo 10 Commander was also present.
Speaking of the Katipunan weapons consisting of two sabers, two krises and a bolo, the President said he was overwhelmed “by these symbols of courage and manhood that are returned to our land,” adding that “our land was occupied, but our hearts were not conquered.”
The Katipunan flag, which showed its age, measures about three feet by nine, and was the battle standard of one of the Katipunan field units:
In receiving the moonrock from Astronaut Cernan, the President recalled that when President Nixon visited here last June he promised Bongbong a ticket on the first commercial liner to the moon.
“I remind the Vice President (Agnew), or rather, at the instance of Bongbong, I am reminding the Vice President about this,” the President remarked in a light vain.
In the afternoon, the President presided at several meetings with NP leaders, beginning at 4 p.m. He first met governors and mayors at the residence of Gov. Isidro Rodriguez of Rizal at Mandaluyong; then sat down with representatives at Speaker Jose B. Laurel’s home, also in Mandaluyong; then he drove to tha house of Senate President Gil J. Puyat in Quezon City, to meet with the senators and other NP leaders.
I have today given away by general instrument of transfer all my worldly possessions to the Filipino people through a foundation to be organized known as the Marcos Foundation.
Moved by the strongest desire and the purest will to set the example of self-denial and self-sacrifice for all our people, I have today decided to give away all my worldly possessions so that they may serve the greater needs of the greater number of our people.
It is my wish that these properties will be used in advancing education, science, technology and the arts.
This act I undertake of my own free will, knowing that, having always been a simple man, my needs will always be lesser than those of many of our people, who have given me the highest honor within their gift, an honor unshared by no other Filipino leader.
Since about a year ago, I have asked some of my closest confidantes to study the mechanisms of this decision. Today studies have been completed, and a foundation will be formed to administer these properties and all funds that may be generated therefrom.
My wife, Imelda, is in agreement with this decision. Provisions will be made for my children, so that they shall be assured of satisfactory education and be prepared to meet their lifetime duties and endeavors.
In the evening, he conferred with the members of the Blue Ladies and the COSEC at the house of NACIDA Administrator Pacita Gonzales in Makati.
On the eve of New Year’s Day, the President issued the following message:
“As at no other time in the past perhaps,: a new tide of change is upon us, and the new year as well as the new decade brings us to heart of unusual and not easily understood problems which main-kind has not had to face before.
“While it has been our good fortune as a people and a nation to surmount the problems of the past decade, it shall be our fate to wrestle with the essential difficulties of the 70’s.
“Because progress creates its own problems, it cannot be hoped that technological and industrial progress will automatically bring about a period of general ease.
Our main task, as I pointed out on my second inaugural address, will be not only to seek to excel the performance of other nations, but to transform the character of our people so that there shall grow in this nation a new heart and a hew spirit that relies solely in the capacity of the individual to understand and apply himself to his burdens, without depending on the generosity of others.
But on the other side of this ethic is the even more demanding moral responsibility of those endowed with material possessions that offend and oppress the stations of the poor.
Henceforth, they will be called upon to share whatever they can of their lot with all your people. Having the duty to lead in this endeavor, I have today renounced my material possessions in favor of the Filipino people.
United in effort, singular in resolve, let us now work together to make this new year a new era in which our people will continue to be free and secure in their freedom because they concern themselves not only with their personal interests but above air the nation’s well-being.
For the moment, my most sincere hope is that this humble act shall set the example and move to greater deeds of unselfishness and compassion, many of our countrymen whose position in society gives them a stronger duty to minister to the needs of our less fortunate brothers and countrymen.
*President Ferdinand E. Marcos, Second Inaugural Address. December 30, 1969.
President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Second Inaugural Address, December 30, 1969:
To Transform the Nation —
Transform OurselvesFOUR YEARS HAVE passed since I took my first oath of office as President of the Republic of the Philippines. We have travelled far since then. On that year and hour when I first assumed the Presidency, we found a government at the brink of disaster and collapse, a government that prompted fear before it inspired hope; plagued by indecision, scorned by self-doubt, its economy despoiled, its treasury plundered, its last remaining gleam shone to light the way of panic. But panic, we did not. Rather against the usual raucous cries of the cynics, we kept faith, and in that faith persevered, until the passing of that terrible cloud.
We survived the agony, we passed the test.
The results of those endeavors are landmarks upon our nation now. We have conquered the first obstacles first.
But our task is not done. For the task of nation-building never ends. We must forge on.
You have given me the task of leadership by an overwhelming and unprecedented mandate. I thank you for your trust. I lead this nation in a new decade, the decade of the seventies — a decade that is one of the most crucial in our history, as well as in the history of Asia and of the world.
What course will this nation take? What options will the government embrace?
From city to countryside, millions wait on this noonday hour for the government to speak. And millions around the globe, from small and big nations, share our cares and torments. They move in great anxiety as they cross the frontier of the new decade. Like us, they bear the problems of our unique and unusual times, the problems of population, technology and finance, of urban order and rural development, of education and social services, of manpower and job opportunities. And like us, they are in search of a healing answer to their anxieties. The interrogation in men’s hearts will no longer defer its voice, but rather demands an answer from everyone, in every place: what is to be man’s fate? What is to be the destiny of the world? Of its exploding millions; its exploited and depressed citizenries; its poor nation-states?
Now in all humility we inform all Asia that we know the nature and equality of our tenuous peace; and that, it is also a demanding peace. We know our duties and shall perform those duties. But while it remains for Asia to solve its problems its own way, it shall very likely fail in its efforts to provide Asian solutions to Asian difficulties, if, lacking unity, it fails to accord to all a goodwill that transcends ideology. For in Asia we must now forge a constructive unity and coexist in purposeful peace, not on terms that must yet be drawn by a conquering ideology, but on bonds that now exist. For in the years of this difficult decade, Asia must decide whether in this vast region of one of the greatest of the world’s peoples, it will build a sanctuary, or set up a continental prison.
Decision cannot much longer be delayed.
I call on all Asia to consider the urgency of a permanent productive peace that gives to every man, and to every nation, the full challenge to individual capacity, and permits a full exploitation of every man’s as well as every nation’s gifts.
I call on Asia to give substance to the dialogue of peace so that goals that until now, throb only in men’s breasts may now rule governments in concert, and that the concords of amity and cooperation exchanged among ministries of governments may now become a sustaining air of our daily lives. Let Asia be a wide emporium of commerce, a vast continent of progress, as all our peoples unite.
We enter this decade burdened by heavy and complex problems.
For our achievements in the past four years are far from our dream of national fulfillment. That dream, that vision is still ahead of us. And deep within our hearts, we know the reason behind the national condition.
In our own land, we have just begun building a nation. We have had to telescope in four years what other nations achieved in decades.
There is a price for the achievements of these four years and that price we shall begin to pay now.
There is a mortgage of dedication, of discipline, of self-abnegating leadership on the billowing fields of green sprung from miracle rice; on every road or bridge; on every school or hospital; on every house or irrigation; on every farm or industry, on every community project that we have built.
For discipline is the other face of achievement.
I address myself less to the Filipino masses who have suffered the burdens of this nation with grace and calmness; I ask not sacrifice from the self-sacrificing.
But I hear the strident screams of protest against self-discipline from the gilded throats of the privileged and the cynically articulate — they who have yet to encounter the implacable face of poverty. I hear the well-meaning cries of the uninformed and the naive. To them I address this plea. Let them share the burden with the grace and courage of the poor. Let them find common cause with the people. Too long have we blamed on one another the ills of this nation; too long have we wasted our opportunities by finding fault with each other, as if this would cure our ills and correct our mistakes. Let us now banish recrimination.
There are many things we do not want about our world. Let us not just mourn them. Let us change them.
The time is now. In government I pledge the severest leadership in integrity as well as discipline. Public officials shall set the vision for simplicity within the bounds of civility. I ask in turn a response from the privileged. Let us be true to ourselves as the people of a poor nation struggling to be prosperous; whatever our personal circumstances, rich or poor, we are all citizens in poverty.
Armed with our experience, we must remember that in the inexorable march of history no tears are shed for the fallen; no sympathies wasted on the weak; the respect we demand of others must only be a reflection of the respect we demand for ourselves; that today with us, self-reliance is no longer an option; it is our fate.
Our national achievements in the last four years encourage us to be proud; they have earned this leadership an unprecedented and overwhelming mandate from our people — they have given this nation a new confidence.
The next few years will lay the basis for a reformation — a revolutionary reformation of our international and domestic policies — of our political, social, legal and economic systems.
Truly then the decade of the seventies cannot be for the faint of heart and men of little faith. It is not for the whiners nor for the timid. It demands men and women of purpose and dedication.
It will require new national habits nothing less than a new social and official morality. Our society must chastise the profligate rich who waste the nation’s substance including its foreign exchange reserves — in personal comforts and luxuries.
The nation’s capacity for growth is limited by its foreign exchange earnings. Every dollar spent on self-indulgence is a dollar taken away from employment, from welfare, from education — from the nation’s social and economic well being.
The Presidency will set the example of this official morality and oblige others to follow. Any act of extravagance in government will be considered not only as an offense to good morals but an act punishable with dismissal from office.
With such a new ethic we will surmount most of the grave problems we are confronting now.
Though they may consume our passions and tear at our hearts, these burdens cannot ever be resolved— either for us here, or for like peoples in other places ─ by either complacency or panic. We must discard complacency without embracing panic; rely on our efforts mainly without rejecting the support of others.
And we must begin this effort now.
To our people I say that government shall not, whatever be the circumstance, abdicate. We shall use our powers at home and our goodwill abroad to secure for our population the station that is their due in the community of nations, and in the advancing world. Our energy and our skill we shall use to draw the riches from our rivers, oceans, forests and the earth itself so that this great country and this great land, that once tempted the ambitious of distant empires, may one day become a power on its own, giving substance and glory not to alien nationalities but to its own people; so that when the histories are written none shall write that here were a people who came to the world’s notice because they gloried in captivity and exploitation long after freedom had been won. It is the logic of our destiny that while we recognize in every man our kind, there is a closer bond that binds us to our Asian brothers, to whom by geography and blood we have been bound; and whom accidents of fortune or of politics cannot make us reject.
Let not this generation pass without it seeking to learn anew that in this great meeting place of Eastern wisdom and Western advance, alien eyes have seen, since the beginning of time, a wealth of commerce; that in the bosom of the Pacific “is a commerce larger than the Atlantic”, and that toward Asia, advance the centers of the future world.
Let not the future observe that being virile in body we multiplied in number, without increasing in spirit. Let not the future record that being 37 million now, we added further millions to our demography without even adding to the quality of will and quality of purpose that make a nation truly great. Let not generations pass in wearying alternation without ever leaving to generations yet ahead a legacy of meaningful achievement.
Let us rather record that whatever be our weaknesses, and the obstacles which civilization may have set against us, we labored to transform this nation into the very finest among God’s nations. Let our torments in peace, like our tortures in war, give us the will and the courage to transfigure ourselves according to the destiny that we must now choose.
Now I pledge to you solemnly the attainment of our dreams no matter at what cost of personal pain and suffering.
I asked for heroes in the past, I ask for heroes now.
I do not demand of you more than I shall demand of myself and of our government. So seek not from government what you cannot find in yourself.
The revolutionary temper of our times demands no less. The hardships have come, brought about by the heritage of a self-indulgent people; let us now bear these hardships; let us overcome them.
We stand today liberated from our own innocence, determined in our resolution that henceforth this nation, these people — all of us — shall demand of ourselves, ALONE, the great promise of this land.
In the solution of our problems, this government will lead.
But, the first duty that confronts us all is how to grow in this nation now a new heart, a new spirit that springs out of the belief that while our dangers be many, and our resources few, there is no problem that cannot be surmounted given but the will and courage.
Let every man be his own master, but let him first and above all, be his own charge. At every time, in all endeavors, in time of peril or in time of ease, let no man turn to his neighbor’s goodness, or to the generosity of the state without having first and above all, turned to his own energies, his skills, his gifts.
It is our destiny to transform this nation; we begin by transforming ourselves first. In this formidable task, no Filipino, no one in the land will be exempt whatever his station in life may be.
Neither wealth nor power will purchase privilege; wealth and power shall not outrage the conscience of our people. This leadership will be a sham if it does not lead the exemplary life of all Filipinos. Together, we shall exile humiliation, we shall banish shame from this land.
There are too many of us who see things as they are and complain. Let us rather see things as they should be and aspire. Let us dream the vision of what could be and not of what might have been.
Trusting in God and ourselves, let us now pledge, my beloved countrymen, in homage to the vision of a race, that there shall be on this spot of the universe, a people strong and free, tracing their ancestral roots to Asia, proud of their oriental heritage as well as their Western culture, secure in their achievements, a people daring to match the iron of the world without losing their essential humanity, eradicating social inequity without anarchy, eliminating subversion without endangering their liberties, practicing self-discipline and self-reliance without ostentation, attaining dignity without losing friends, seeking true independence without provoking war, embracing; freedom and liberty even in deprivation.
Thus we prove to our posterity that our dream was true, that even in this land of impoverished legacy, the wave of the future is not totalitarianism but democracy.