ACTIVITY 1: Formulate : Basic Assertion, Emphatic Assertion, and I-Language Assertion (CSS A, FOS A, B, C, D)

Speech of His Excellency, Jose P. Laurel, President of the Republic of the Philippines, delivered over Station PIAM
Manila, on February 29, 1944, addressed to the Filipino youth.

YOUTH OF MY BELOVED LAND:

In this critical period of our history, we need the heart, the soul and the vigor of the youth of our land to help us build our
country on the most enduring basis of brotherhood and solidarity of all Filipinos. I am, therefore, happy to know of the
integration of the Filipino youth and that the Filipino youth is now on the march. The question is: Where is it going? Is it
marching with irresistible will and determination toward progress and civilization, peace and order, and the prosperity
and happiness of the Fatherland? If it is, I, as the chosen head of our nation and our people, heartily welcome it and bid it
Godspeed.

It is trite saying that the future belongs to youth, especially to those dynamic, aggressive and self-confident young men
and women who have foresight. Thus, they have the bounden duty to ensure it. So much faith the greatest Filipino patriot
and hero, Rizal, had in the youth of the land that while he was still in his teens, he dedicated to it his prize-winning poem
entitled “To the Filipino Youth,” and he called the Filipino youth not without reason and justification “Fair hope of my
Fatherland.”

Several years later, when Rizal was in Madrid, he thought again of the Filipino youth. On the occasion of the signal honor
and distinction conferred upon the famous Filipino painter Juan Luna when one of his paintings was awarded the highest
prize in the artistic world, Rizal offered a touching toast. He expressed the fervent hope that the worthy and commendable
examples of Juan Luna, and Resurrection, another famed Filipino painter, will be imitated or emulated by the Filipino
youth. In the course of a few years that youth had become to him more than the “fair hope of my fatherland”; it had
become the “sacred hope of my Fatherland.”

Rizal’s fair and sacred hope is represented by the young men and women of today, by you, the Filipino youth on the march,
you who will be either the leaders and masters of your country and your country’s fate tomorrow or the hewers of wood
and drawers of water for other people more ambitious and far-seeing than you, men with vision, with courage, and with
an indomitable will to succeed whatever be the obstacles.

Inspired by the same noble sentiment, the late Dr. Rafael Palma, builder of the University of the Philippines, dedicated to
the same youth, to the same “fair and sacred hope” of the Fatherland, his last work and masterpiece, his life-size biography
of Rizal. In his dedicatory remarks he gave voice to his abiding faith and confidence in the ability of the Filipino young men
and women to make good.

Have they made good or are they making good? Were Rizal living today would he be proud of them? Would he say, if he
could see them from beyond the tomb, that he did not die in vain, that his country’s sacred and beautiful hope has not
disappointed him and those who like him had given their full measure of sacrifice for the glory of their Fatherland?

How fare the youth of the land? Are they planting the seeds that will make their country great? Do they realize the serious
problems that now confront the Republic of the Philippines, which is their Republic, and are they contributing to the fullest
extent to the solution of such problems? Are they putting their strong and broad shoulders on the wheel of progress and
prosperity? Are they helping actively in the complete restoration of peace and order in their country and in the gigantic
reconstruction work which both the people and the government must undertake? Are they doing their duty as citizens of
the Republic, working for the common happiness and welfare of their respective communities?

As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Are the Filipino young men and women of today sowing the seeds of peace and prosperity so
that they will reap the fruits of progress and tranquility? Man is the archetype of society. Both society and the nation grow
as the individuals grow. Unless our youth prepare for the future, there will be no future for them.

“I want to let those who deny us every feeling of patriotism,” wrote Rizal, “that we know how to die for our duty and for
our convictions. What matters death if one dies for what one loves, for one’s country, and for those one adores?”

In one of his parting letters he wrote “My future, my life, my joys, all I have sacrificed for my love for her”—referring to
the Philippines. “Whatever be my fate, I will die blessing her and wishing her the dawn of her redemption.” That, you will
agree, is a wonderful sentiment. Does the Filipino youth of today feel and cherish it?

Isagani, one of the youthful characters that stand out in bold relief in Rizal’s Noli, once called on one of the leading lawyers
in Manila for an advice. The lawyer advised Isagani to follow the line of least resistance. “Why fight, why think,” he argued,
“when somebody else will do the fighting and thinking for you? Prosperity, happiness, and peace of mind,” the legal
adviser pointed out, lie in the direction of the current. “Believe me,” he concluded, “you will remember me and think me
right when you have gray heirs like mine.”

What was Isagani’s retort? “When I have gray hairs like yours,” he answered, “and I look back upon my past and see that
I had worked only for myself, without having done what I could well have done and should have done for the country
which has given me everything, then, every gray hair of mine will be for me a thorn and instead of being proud of my gray
hairs, I shall be ashamed of them.”

Do the Filipino youth of today talk and feel that way? Are they fully aware of the tremendous responsibility placed upon
them by Rizal when he called them “fair and sacred hope of the Fatherland?” Are they willing to die for their convictions,
to fight hunger and poverty and all the other evils that hard times bring in their train so that their country, their people,
their Republic, might live in peace and in abundance?

Contrasting his age and that of his son, the father of Ibarra, Rizal’s hero in the NOLI, said: “The future opens itself for you;
for me it is closing. Your affections are being born; mine are dying. Fire burns in your blood; frost is congealing in mine;
and yet you cry and do not know how to sacrifice the present for the future, a future which will be useful to you and your
country.”

“You do not know how to sacrifice the present for a useful, fruitful future.” Surely, the youth of today cannot and will not
accept that serious charge. They cannot and will not disappoint their greatest hero, martyr and model. They are ready and
willing, I take it, to do their part, to work with their duly constituted leaders for the salvation of their country especially
during these days of supreme ordeal when the fate of the Philippines is at stake as a result of the scarcity of food and the
continued pernicious and disloyal activities of some of our citizens.

I am taking the liberty, therefore, on this occasion to invite and call upon all the youth of the land to join hands with the
forces of the government to stimulate food production, to restore complete peace and order throughout the length and
breadth of the Philippines, and to work actively and persistently for the welfare, progress and prosperity of the Republic.
The Republic is not of this generation to keep, but it is particularly for the young generation and future generations to
preserve and to enjoy.

I thank you for this opportunity of addressing the youth of the land on this memorable occasion. I shall be happy to say a
few words to you later in connection with the integration movement of the Filipino youth not only in the public and private
schools but of all Filipino young men and women all over the islands so that the youth of the land may be not only a strong
factor in supporting this government and in making this Republic an enduring nation but also so that with the help and
cooperation and loyalty of the Filipino youth, we may be in a position to transmit as a heritage to future generations a
country, a people, compact and united in the bonds of a common affection.

I thank you.

Source: Office of the Solicitor General Library

 Activity 2: Formulate a 1000-word Evaluative Statement (FOS A, B, C, D)

First Inaugural Address (1965) by Ferdinand Marcos

10th President of the Philippines
"Mandate for Greatness"

Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. Vice President, My Speaker, My Countrymen:

By your mandate, through the grace of the Almighty, I stand here today in the traditional ritual; of the assumption of the
Presidency.

By your mandate, once again you have demonstrated the vitality of our democracy by the peaceful transference of
governmental authority.

It is but fitting and proper that this traditional ritual be undertaken on this sacred ground. For sixty-nine years ago today,
a young patriot and prophet of our race fell upon his beloved soil. He fell from a tyrant's bullet and out of the martyr's
blood that flowed copiously there sprang a new nation.

That nation became the first modern republic in Asia and Africa. It is our nation. We are proud to point to our country as
one stable in an area of stability; where ballots, not bullets, decide the fate and parties.

Thus Kawit and Malolos are celebrated in our history as acts of national greatness. Why national greatness? Because,
armed with nothing but raw courage and passionate intelligence and patriotism, our predecessors built the noble edifice
of the First Asian Republic.

With the same reverence do we consider Bataan, Corregidor and the Philippine resistance movement.

Today the challenge is less dramatic but no less urgent. We must repeat the feat of our forebears in a more
commonplace sphere, away from the bloody turmoil of heroic adventure – by hastening our social and economic
transformation. For today, the Filipino, it seems, has lost his soul, his dignity and his courage.

We have come upon a phase of our history when ideas are only a veneer for greed and power in public and private
affairs, when devotion to duty and dedication to a public trust are to be weighed at all times against private advantages
and personal gain, and when loyalties can be traded in the open market.

Our people have come to a point of despair. I know this for I have personally met many of you. I have heard the cries of
thousands and clasped hands in brotherhood with millions of you. I know the face of despair and I know the face of
hunger because I have seen it in our barrios, huts and hovels all over our land.

We have ceased to value order as a social virtue. Law, we have learned successfully to flaunt. We have become past
masters at devising slogans for the sake of recorders of history but not for those who would live by them in terms of
honor and dignity.

Peace in our time, we declare. But we cannot even guarantee life and limb in our growing cities. Prosperity for all, we
promise. But only a privileged few achieve it, and, to make the pain obvious, parade their comforts and advantages
before the eyes of an impoverished many. Justice and security are as myths rendered into elaborate fictions to
dramatize our so-called well-being and our happy march to progress.

But you have rejected all these through a new mandate of leadership. It is a mandate a change of leadership in this
country, and to me, as your President, this mandate is clear- it is a mandate not merely for change. It is a mandate for
greatness.

For indeed we must rise from the depths of ignominy and failure. Our government is gripped in the iron hand of venality,
its treasury is barren, its resources are wasted, its civil service is slothful and indifferent, its armed forces demoralized
and its councils sterile.

But we shall draw from our rich resources of spiritual strength that flow from this place of martyrdom.

We are in crisis. You know that the government treasury is empty. Only by severed self-denial will there be hope for
recovery within the next year.
Our government in the past few months has exhausted all available domestic and foreign sources of borrowing. Our
public financial institutions have been burdened to the last loanable peso. The lending capacity of the Central Bank has
been utilized to the full. Our national government is indebted to our local governments. There are no funds available for
public works and little of the appropriations for our national government for the present fiscal year. Industry is at a
standstill. Local manufacturing firms have been compelled to close or reduce their capacity.

Unemployment has increased. Prices of essential commodities and service remain unstable. The availability of rice
remains uncertain. Very recently the transportation companies with the sanction of the Public service Commission hiked
their fares on the plea of survival.

I, therefore, first call upon the public servants for self-sacrifice. Long have we depended upon the people. In every crisis,
we call upon our citizens to bear the burden of sacrifice. Now, let the people depend upon us. The economic viability of
the government and of the nation requires immediate retrenchment. Accordingly, we must install without any delay a
policy of rigorous fiscal restraint.

Every form of waste – or of conspicuous consumption and extravagance, shall be condemned s inimical to public
welfare.

Frugality with government funds and resources must be developed into a habit at every level of the government. High
public officials must themselves set the example.

One of the most galling of our inherited problems is that of lawlessness. Syndicated crime has been spawned by
smuggling. The democratic rule of law has lost all meaning and majesty, since all men know that public officials combine
with unscrupulous businessmen to defraud the government and the public – with absolute impunity. The sovereignty of
the republic has never before been so derided and mocked as when the lawless elements, the smuggling syndicates and
their protectors, disavow the power of laws and of our government over them. This is the climate for criminality.
Popular faith in the government deteriorates.

We must, therefore, aim quickly at the establishment of a genuine rule of law. We shall use the fullest powers of the
Presidency to stop smuggling and lawlessness.

I, therefore, call upon all to join hands with me in maintaining the supremacy of the law. To those who flaunt the law, I
say this is my consultation duty and I am resolved to perform it. But it is not mine alone but yours. For whether Filipino
or alien you survive under the mantle of protection granted by our laws. I am pledged to execute the law and preserve
the constitution of our republic. This I shall do. And if need be, I shall direct the forcible if legal elimination of all lawless
elements.

Our social policy will seek to broaden the base of our democracy. Our forefathers built a democratic republic on an
extremely narrow social and economic base. The task of our generation is to broaden this base continuously. We must
spread opportunities for higher income for all. But we shall encourage investment to insure progressive production – the
true answer to our economic ills.

Our people sought a new administration in the expectation of a meaningful change – certainly a bolder, more
courageous approach to our problems.

They must have believed that we can provide this new outlook, and perhaps the passion for excellence – the motive
force for greatness.

We shall provide this approach, the necessary change of pace, the new outlook that places large demands and large
challenges before the nation. The human person is unique in creation. Of all organisms, it is he that develops proportion
in to the demands made upon his abilities. That is true of individuals and I hold it to be true of the nations.

Recently, we have come to realize that economic planning is as essential for freedom as political planning.

Before today we had squandered the energies and resourcefulness of our people. In the government we saw a crippling
hesitancy and timidity to face the facts of our times and to boldly provide the initiative.

We cannot afford to rest on the shock of our perceptions, nor on the outrage even of our painful admission of the facts.
We shall have to restore into our life the vitality, which had been corroded by our complacency.

In international affairs, we shall be guided by the national interests and by the conscience of our society in response to
the dilemma of man in the 20th century.
The Filipino today lives in a world that is increasingly Asians as well as African. Asia claims one- half of all humanity, and
this half-lives on a little over one- sixth of the earth's habitable surface. Africa's millions are also now coming to their
own. Recent events have shown the willingness of our Asian friends to build a bridge to us. We can do no less than to
build a strong foundation at our end.

Today, as never before, we need a new orientation toward Asian; we must intensity the cultural identity with our
ancient kin and make common cause with them in our drive toward prosperity and peace. For this we shall require the
understanding of ourselves and of Asia that exceeds acquaintance; we require the kind of knowledge that can only be
gained through unabating scholarship on our histories, cultures, social forces and aspirations, and through more active
interaction with our friends and neighbors.

What threatens humanity in another area threatens our society as well. We cannot, therefore, merely contemplate the
risks of our century without coming into any decision on our own. Whenever there is a fight for freedom, we cannot
remain aloof from it. But whatever decision we shall have to make shall be determined by our own interests tempered
by the reasonability of that patriotic position in relation to the international cause.

This nation can be great again. This I have said over and over. This is my article of faith, and Divine Providence has willed
that you and I can now translate this faith into deeds.

I have repeatedly told you: each generation writes its own history. Our forebears have written theirs. With fortitude and
excellence, we must write ours.

We must renew the vision of greatness for our country.

This is a vision of our people rising above the routine to face formidable challenge and overcome them. It means the
rigorous pursuit of excellence.

It is a government that acts as the guardian of the law's majesty, the source of justice to the weak and solace to the
underprivileged, a ready friend and protector of the common man and a sensitive instrument of his advancement and
not captivity.

This vision rejects and discards the inertia of centuries.

It is a vision of the jungles opening up to the farmers' tractor and plow, and the wilderness claimed for agriculture and
the support of human life, the mountains yield their boundless treasure, rows of factories turning the harvest of our
fields into thorough products.

It is the transformation of the Philippines into a hub of progress – of trade and commerce in Southeast Asia.

It is our people bravely determining our own future. For to make the future is the supreme act of freedom.

This is a vision that all of you share for our country's future. It is a vision, which can, and should, engage the energies of
the nation. This vision must touch the deeper layers of national vitality and energy.

We must awaken the hero inherent in every man.

We must harness the wills and the hearts of all our people. We must find the secret chords, which turn ordinary men
into heroes, mediocre fighters into champions.

Not one hero alone do I ask from you – but many; nay all, I ask all of you to be heroes of our nation.

Offering all our efforts to our Creator, we must derive ourselves to be great again.

This is your dream and mine. By your choice you have committed yourselves to it. Come then, let us march together
towards the dream of greatness.
Activity 2: FORMULATE A 1000-WORD EVALUATIVE STATEMENT CSS A

"To Transform the Nation — Transform Ourselves"

My Countrymen:

Four years have passed since I took my first oath of office as President of the Republic of the Philippines. We have
traveled 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 into 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.

The world seeks to know whether man is indeed impelled by some strange instinct to self-destruction or whether its
sciences on the relationships of men can catch up or overreach its natural sciences.

In Asia we must now forge a constructive unity and co-exist 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.

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 mortgage of dedication, of discipline, of self-abnegating leadership in the billowing fields of green sprung from
miracle rice; on every road or bridge; on every school or hospital; on every community project we have built.

For discipline is the other face of achievement.

But I hear the strident cries 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 rectify our
errors. Let us now banish recrimination.

There are too many of us who see things as they are and complain. let us rather see things as they should be and inspire.
Let us dream the vision of what could be and not what might have been,

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.

Today with us, self-reliance is no longer an option; it is our fate.

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 them 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 on 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 nations 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 an offense to good morals but also an act punishable with dismissal from office.

With such a new ethic, we will surmount the problems we are confronting now.

We must discard complacency embracing panic; rely on our efforts alone without rejecting the support of others.

Let not the future observe that being virile in body we multiplied in number, without increasing in spirit.

I do not demand of you more than I shall demand of myself and of government. So seek not from government what you
cannot find in yourself.

In the solution of our problems, this government will lead.

But, the first duty that confronts us all is how to continue 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.

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.

Neither wealth nor power will purchase privilege; wealth and power shall not outrage the conscience of our people.

Trusting in God and in ourselves, we must now pledge, my countrymen, that in homage to the vision of a race, there
shall be in this spot of the universe, a people strong and free, tracing their ancestral roots to Asia, proud of their oriental
heritage as well as western culture, secure in their achievements, a people daring to match the iron of the world without
losing their essential humanity, eradicating social iniquity without encouraging anarchy, practicing self-discipline and
self-reliance without ostentation, attaining dignity without losing friends, seeking true independence without provoking
war, embracing freedom 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.