Speech
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
Before the Filipino-American community

[Delivered in San Francisco, California, U.S.A., November 10, 1993]

Sharing in the
Filipino dream

I AM VERY GLAD to be here in San Francisco—a port through which many generations of Filipino immigrants and travelers have passed.

The Bay Area is perhaps America’s best showcase of East and West working together—by respecting the past while looking toward the future.

Your presence here today means a lot to me. I realize that you have had to take time off your busy schedules to meet me. I know how busy life can be for a Filipino in the United States.

After all, many years ago, I was an expatriate here myself. I was young and far from home, and America was a vast and often bewildering country—full of challenges and opportunities for those who would take them.

Giving substance to democracy

My circumstances obliged me to return to the Philippines and serve in our government, and I have never regretted having done so. But I have always treasured the five years I spent here in the United States, because I learned—and I felt— what it was to be a part of a great country.

I left America with the resolve that someday, God willing, I would do whatever I could—however modestly—to help my own country and people achieve their own greatness, on their own terms.

Today, that opportunity has come—and that responsibility has fallen squarely on my shoulders.

I have been President for a little over sixteen months. Within that time, I trust that I have already begun to redeem my pledge “to win the future” for our people.

We began by seeking reconciliation and unity with our disaffected countrymen—the Communist insurgents, the military rebels and the Moro National Liberation Front. Since then some 15,000 of them have crossed over the bridges of peace we have built, back into civil and productive society.

Today you will find that many of the brave idealists of the martial law period—of whatever persuasion—have found new purpose in helping to make the Philippines grow.

We declared a total war on crime. And today the crime rate is declining dramatically. We are cleaning the police and the judiciary—as well as the entire bureaucracy—of crooks and misfits.

Our people deserve a government that works, and works for their benefit. True enough, sometimes overwhelming passion for debate is still very much alive in an atmosphere of freedom of choice and of speech. But this, it must be said, is the debate of the free—the very spirit of our democracy. What we must do now is to invest that spirit with material substance.

Unless our people are well provided for and empowered to take charge of their own lives, no democracy can last long, and freedom will be meaningless.

A wellspring of pride

We may be far from the Philippines today, and some of you have been here for many, many years. But I am sure that no day passes without your thinking of home—your first home.

You have come here to the United States for many reasons. I understand and respect those reasons, and indeed I admire the strength of spirit and the will to succeed that any Filipino immigrant or expatriate must have, to be here at all.

Many of you have achieved great success and prominence in American society, and this, too, is a wellspring of pride for us back home.

But it may be good to remember that Filipinos in America have not always been so fortunate.

One man’s experience

More than sixty years ago a poor and unlettered province-mate of mine—from Binalonan, Pangasinan, which is next to my hometown of Asingan—arrived on a ship in Seattle.

Shortly upon arrival, he learned that he had been sold for five dollars to a labor contractor. He spent the next many years picking fruits, working in canneries and doing odd menial jobs just to survive.

But at the same time, he taught himself to be a better person. He read all the books he could in the public libraries. He discovered that he could write, and write well.

Soon his poems and stories appeared in the best American publications. His autobiographical novel, America Is in the Heart, sold more than a hundred thousand copies, and was translated worldwide.

But he never forgot to help his fellow Filipinos. He organized Filipino farm workers on the West Coast. He fought exploitation and racism. He fought for unity among his compatriots, and among other minorities.

Unfortunately when he died in 1956, also in Seattle, he was poor again, and sick, and few Filipinos back home had even heard his name.

But he had served his time—and the future—well. If life is so much better here for minority groups today, they owe a great part of that change to this man—Carlos Bulosan.

We may not remember Carlos Bulosan, but his ideals—and his struggles—have survived him.

Today we have a new generation of Filipino-Americans who tend to be much more highly educated and more affluent than the immigrants of Bulosan’s time.

American society itself has grown not only in its ethnic diversity but also in its democratic substance.

While this country may be beset by formidable economic and social problems—as would surely beset any other country of its size and complexity—the American dream continues to be pursued—most intensely, by its newest citizens.

We would not deny you that dream. We wish you all the best in your aspirations. Your success is ours also. And we in the Philippines are proud of your collective achievements.

The Filipino dream

But remember that we, too, have our Filipino dream back home. We dream of a progressive and prosperous Philippines where every Filipino has enough to eat, a good and stable job, decent shelter and every opportunity to lead a long and productive life.

My vision of “Philippines 2000” should put that dream within reach by the turn of the century. We will exert every effort to ensure its attainment. It will take much discipline, hard work and self-sacrifice. Those of you who have succeeded here in America know what that means. And if you can do it here, there is no reason why we cannot do it back home. Kung kaya ninyo, kakayanin din namin!

But we need your help. We need the help of every Filipino, at home or abroad, to whom the word inangbayan, or motherland, means more than a postcard picture.

Share our dream, and be a part of it. See what you can do to build new bridges of friendship, and of business, and cultural cooperation between America and the Philippines.

Our relationship with the United States has entered a new phase. It has matured, as it should, into the understanding of old friends and sovereign partners. I believe that, where you are and whatever you do, you can help that understanding along. And we can begin by achieving unity among ourselves—to show others and our fellow Filipinos that we share the same lofty ideals as much as we share the same blood.

There are now more than two million Filipino-Americans here in the United States. This makes you the second-largest group of Asian-Americans, after the Chinese.

But your numbers are growing at the fastest rate, so much so that by the year 2000, yours will likely be the largest Asian-American community.

A positive power

These numbers by themselves imply tremendous political, economic and cultural power—a positive power that could be put to use to benefit our people here and at home.

But we have failed to realize this power, because of traditional, provincial and parochial divisions among ourselves.

Those of you here in the Bay Area know this to be profoundly and sadly true.

I am told, for example, that there are more than 3,000 Filipino-American organizations all over the United States. That is well and good—if those 3,000 organizations establish strong and viable linkages toward the definition and promotion of American—and Philippine—interests.

We can continue to celebrate our regional diversity. But here, as at home, we cannot hope to succeed as a people if we cannot think beyond being natives of provinces and towns.

As Gloria Ochoa, who was the Democratic Party candidate for Congress in Santa Barbara County, observed:

“Filipino-Americans have become a powerful group, without their realizing it. They form the backbone of America’s health-care system; they teach America’s children; they are scientists and researchers in the universities; they are artists and musicians of note; they are protectors of civil rights; they are historians and writers. But they are the last to be their own advocates.”

We must learn to put our past and petty divisions behind us, and focus on those more significant values and aspirations that unite and dignify us as a people.

The Ilocanos have a saying we can all profit from: Ornus ken panagtutulong isu ti tulbek ti gundaoay. (Unity and cooperation are the key to opportunity.)

Or, as the Tagalogs say, “Nasa pagkakaisa ang lakas,” and the Hiligaynon, “Ang kusog ara sa pagbinuligay.”

If we can achieve strength through unity, then all good things will indeed be possible for all of us in this land of opportunity.