INTRODUCTION
The significance of this night goes beyond the glitter of this annual awards ceremony of the Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA). After the last of the awards shall have gone to the most deserving athlete, another ritual shall transpire in the quiet of our hearts — the ritual of recollection and reflection.

We shall reflect on our achievements, hoarding the nuggets of wisdom and lessons we have gleaned from our efforts so that we shall all the more be better the next time. And we shall have to come to terms with our shortcomings and losses, and be determined not to repeat our mistakes in the coming year.

Achievements, we have had a few.

I, too, am aware of our failures and disappointments, necessitating the shakeup of the Philippine Sports Commission’s top leadership.

Never has a single year been so significant and memorable and so crammed with events that are destined to affect the future course of Philippine sports. Upon our shoulders were placed a new responsibility and a fresh mission: not to give our nation another embarrassing moment in the local and international scene for we have gone through enough trying times.
RENEWED STRENGTH FROM OUR LESSONS LEARNED
Where we go from here is the purpose of our reflection. Definitely all of us — athletes and officials alike — need a sincere and thorough soul-searching in our own unrelenting quest for excellence in physical fitness and sports development.

We all must wake up to the call of the times. We must cast aside divisiveness and forge a unity of purpose. To make this happen, our sports planners and policymakers must recognize our mistakes and shortcomings in the past.

The current programs, it must be admitted, are far from adequate to enable us to overtake our Southeast Asian neighbors in the arena of sports.

Today’s sports development program needs a lot of reworking, not just warming over. We must bring out the best in the Filipino youth and our young athletes through a comprehensive and thorough grass roots approach.

We need better results, new faces, more heroes in the sports arena. This can only come about if we have a clear movement towards the future. In this regard, I welcome the new programs developed, upon my direction, by the leadership of the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) and the launching of its “PSC 2000!!!” plan, and also the support of the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) and National Sports Associations (NSAs).

In 1994, we must not only set our sights on the Asian Games in Hiroshima but also make a strong and committed bid for a historic Olympic gold medal in the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta. My great wish is to have this Olympic gold medal within this decade.

But more than this is the hope that all young Filipinos, guided by the example of their elders, become practitioners of physical fitness and maintain enduring enthusiasm for sports as a means to attain success and excellence in their life-long goals.

These new year resolutions not only signify our burning desire for excellence in the sporting world but also, and more importantly, to support our national efforts to reform our society and bring our country to the threshold of sustained progress by the turn of the century.
A STORY OF TRIAL AND SUCCESS
Before I end, I would like to share the story of John Pierpont whose life began auspiciously enough but who died a failure.

He graduated from Yale, where he studied to become an educator, but he was a failure as a teacher because he was soft on his students. So, he studied to become a lawyer. But he, too, was a loser: he was too generous to his clients and took on cases that did not pay well.

Later on, he decided to become a minister. But his position against slavery got him into trouble and he was forced to resign from his church.

When the American Civil War broke out, he volunteered as a chaplain in the Massachusetts Regiment. But after two weeks he quit because the task was just too much for his health.

By then he was 76 years old. Someone found him a job as a file clerk in the Treasury Department. He was not good at this job either for his heart was not into it.

But in many ways John Pierpont, who was a reformist, was a great success. Every December we celebrate his success in a song. He wrote “Jingle Bells”, a song that an estimated half a billion people around the world sing, hum or whistle.

It is a song that stands for the simplest joys, that fill everyone’s heart. The song was a gift to his family. It became a permanent gift for Christmas, one of “invisible and invincible joy. ”

Let us give our people a permanent Christmas gift in sports — the resolve to make more of our athletes known internationally as the best in their events.
CLOSING
At this point let me again congratulate our honored athletes, and may 1994 be a year that will bring our country and banner back in the thick of world sports.

Thank you and good night.

Mabuhay ang PSA!

Mabuhay ang “POC 2000!!!”

Mabuhay tayong lahat!