Your Holiness:

I do not have to tell you of how much your visit has inspired the Filipino people, 65 million of us, and filled our hearts to overflowing. You have seen and heard it for yourself these past four days. Let me just say this:

We have listened and we have heard your message. And we will bear it in mind in our labors in the days and months and years to come. For truly there is much that we can do for ourselves, for our country and for the world once we learn, as you put it, “to see with the eyes of Jesus Christ”.

There are no obstacles that cannot be hurdled once we take to heart his message of faith, hope and love.

With the young people of the Philippines and the youth of the world whom you affected so deeply, we too pledge a new commitment to meeting the great needs of our country and of all humanity.

Here on Philippine shores, we will carry on with even greater resolve our mission to conquer poverty, to lift every citizen to a life of dignity and well-being, and to sustain ourselves on the needs of the spirit.

Beyond our shores, we will make common cause with others in building a more peaceful and happier world.

In many defining ways, this, your second visit to the Philippines, and our People Power Revolution at EDSA in February 1986 are strikingly similar and equally historic. Both were marked by:

• massive crowds who remained orderly because of a common cause;

• the leading role of the youth and the religious;

• the peaceful environment and the great spiritual re-awakening that accompanied the two events; and

• the decisions of conscience for personal renewal and commitments for national transformation that followed.

Your Holiness, as you continue your mission today to Papua New Guinea, and thereafter to Australia and Sri Lanka, we of the Philippines consider ourselves as still part of your pilgrimage, and wish you “an excess of success” for the rest of your journey.

You leave us with a new sense of both the capabilities and responsibilities of our national community — especially our resources of the spirit and our responsibilities to others.

We thank your holiness, for the kind blessings you have abundantly bestowed upon our people, and the priceless legacies you leave behind.

Knowing as we do that our people are never far from your mind and heart, we believe more than ever that we will attain peace and prosperity in our land, and become, indeed, the beacon of peace and harmony in Asia.

From the depths of our hearts we say again — salamat!

Salamat!

Salamat sa inyo Banal na Papa!!!

Mabuhay ang Santo Papa!!!

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!!!