President Fred Pascual, members of the Board of Trustees, fellow awardees, dear friends:
            Oscar Wilde once said, “We’re all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
            It was obviously our habit of looking at the stars that caught the attention of the University of the Philippines Alumni Association (UPAA) and prompted these awards.
            But if anyone among us believes that this is but an innocent ceremony, they would be quite mistaken.
            Granting us these awards has its risks and consequences.
            But if giving away the awards is risky enough, asking me to speak on behalf of all the awardees may be riskier still. Let me tell you why.
            First of all, although the awardees are all good friends, I cannot presume that we hold the same views on everything, or even on any single important thing. 
            Except perhaps for the fact, that we are all proud UP alumni, who believe in the daang matuwid, and that--- I would like to believe ---- we all had a hand in electing the same Vice President of the Republic.
            Secondly, while UPAA may wish to hold us up as examples to the younger ones, the circumstances that led them to consider us for the awards may vary from one awardee to another.
            Some of us have been consistent achievers all throughout. They have been unqualified successes every step of the way from the very beginning. They were born to succeed ---they did not have to seek out success or have it thrust upon them. That has not been the lot of all.
            In my own case, my humble circumstances as a self-supporting political science and law student inspired me to dream more that I would one day be in this distinguished company.

            Standing here today seems simply to illustrate Winston Churchill’s ironic definition of success as “The ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”
            This is not to say that I have to apologize for my profession. For as John F. Kennedy once said, “Those of you who regard my profession of political life with some disdain should remember that it made it possible for me to move from being an obscure lieutenant in the United States Navy to Commander-in-Chief in fourteen years with very little technical competence.”
            And I also agree with Eric Sevareid’s observation that in many countries the practitioners fall into two groups:  “The boys who seek political positions in order to be something, and the men who seek political positions in order to do something.”

            Thirdly, there was no time to consult with the others on what to say to our hosts and patrons on this occasion.
            Whatever little time I had outside of my many duties as Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) chair cum chief Presidential Adviser on OFW Concerns cum Chairman Emeritus of the Inter-Agency Task Force Against Illegal Recruitment and Human Trafficking has been spent recently on public consultations on the Marcos burial issue.
            And so my fellow awardees are taking such a big chance giving me a carte blanche to speak for them at this free dinner.
            But ours is a representative democracy.  And until my mandate is revoked or recalled,  I intend to perform my assigned task, and  hope  that what I have to say here on behalf of the awardees will cause no one any indigestion, nor provoke a controversy as serious as the burial issue  which, we all hope, we could permanently bury soon.
            The final price of these awards is the duties they impose on the awardees. These are real rather than merely psychological or imaginary duties.
            And the awardees must accept and discharge them unconditionally.
            Henceforth, we shall no longer be judged only for what we used to be, but as the new symbols of excellence of the UP Alumni Association.

            Like it or not, we have just gained a new office, without having sought or aspired for it. And we must submit ourselves to the closest scrutiny of our peers, whom we do not even see.
            As awardees, it becomes our solemn duty to do whatever it is within our individual and collective capacities to raise the state university’s standards to the summit of universal excellence so that the University would continue to produce an endless and a more abundant stream of Filipino scholars and patriots worthy of the highest aspirations and hopes of our people and country.  
            Hearing no objections from my fellow awardees, I now commit myself and my fellow awardees to the performance of that solemn duty.
            We are yours to command, Mr. President, members of the board of trustees, officers and members of the UP Alumni Association.

            Thank you and good night.​