LAST SONA of PRRD 2021
By Hedda Tady
At the end of my lifetime and I find myself asked what was one single thing I did for my country and for my countrymen, and particularly for the next generation of Filipinos - generations of which my own kids are part of - I’d say, I took to social media at a time when ordinary citizens (unpopularly) took up the keyboard as a weapon in a war where only words and heart determined winners and losers.
Outside the country, especially in his first three years as president, the mainstream media and journalists aligned with the likes of Marya were spewing out half-truths about what he was as a leader, taking cues from journalists in the Philippines who either did not know any better (having been raised and conditioned to think as intellectual elites) or, who never set foot in either Mindanao or the rural areas in the Visayas to fully comprehend what the real war was about : the exploitation of the poor, the rape of our natural resources by companies that extract them, leaving areas with very little drinking water left for villages, for one.
The other camp will never acknowledge his results. We carry on. The future will be the judge of his brand of leadership. In the hearts of those who humble themselves in the face of true care for the people, he will always be the father who gave so much of himself for his people.
As I watch you deliver your last SONA today, PRRD, I bow my head in gratitude to the Maker, for having given the Philippines an opportunity to RISE from decades of a war we have been fighting on our own - in the hopes of freedom from the shackles of post-colonial culture and insecurities.
When other world leaders rolled out the red carpet for you on your visits, that is AFFIRMATION of their respect for what you try to bring to the country and to Filipinos.
THANK YOU, Tay, sa sakripisyo.
Daghang salamat!
Source: FB/July 26, 2021
