I enjoin you all, officers and men of the Armed Forces, to be ever vigilant, to be ever loyal to the principles of democracy that you, even as I, are sworn to uphold. Remember at all times that your loyalty is to God and to our country, to our democratic institutions and certainly not to individuals. In this coming election, you will be doing the country a great service by maintaining strict impartiality. As candidate for president, I should like to make it clear that I would rather go down in defeat than win by means of terrorism or by means of fraud. Exert all your efforts to ensure a clean, honest, and free expression of the people’s will. As your Commander-in-Chief, it is my desire that you do no less. God grant that this land of ours preserve its birthright of freedom, and that you, the vanguards of our bastion of liberty, continue to have the strength, the discipline, the dedication, the self-sacrifice, which alone can guarantee the perpetuation of our well being.
President Carlos P. Garcia
Camp Murphy (now Aguinaldo) speech, Loyalty Day, October 30, 1960
(President Garcia lost the November 1960 elections to Diosdado Macapagal)
I certainly remember this quote being taught in my elementary school! (it was not mentioned where it was from..)
Does this give us enough reason to remove Gloria from office, even using extra-constitutional means?
gone are the days of Statesmen.
Jon, that would be contrary to the above speech whose message is to protect the principle of ‘one person – one vote’. Since the current matter is largely about violating the integrity of the people’s vote, resorting to the gun to get one’s point across would be somewhat contradictory. That’s one reason why Faldeon, in his current incarnation, deserves our support.
Manolo,
Excellent!
This should be a required reading in high school where idealism abounds so that students can look back and measure our present leaders and realized if they voted.
…and realize if they have voted right.
Can anyone put this reading on a huge billboard close to Malacanang, so President Arroyo can make measure up herself?