It is a distinct pleasure for me to be part of your high school grand alumni homecoming. This is one of my favorite places in the country, and I have so much to thank you for, just for asking me to be with you today.

            But you have so much more to celebrate. Your school is one of the oldest and most distinguished public high schools in the country. Founded in 1902, it had the Thomasites for its first faculty. In 1993, it was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest high school in terms of population, which at that time stood at 16,535.  The distinction remains true to this day.

            But Rizal High School has produced not only quantity but above all quality.  Names like Senators Jovito Salonga, Neptali Gonzales and Rene Saguisag, Maestro Lucio San Pedro and Carlos “Botong” Francisco are just a few of those who owe their intellectual beginnings to your school.

            And year after year, some of the country’s most talented young men and women file out of your campus on their way to the university.  So many of them are assuredly with us here today.

            This grand homecoming is not only a great occasion to rekindle your best high school memories.  It is also an occasion to look back and see the distance you have travelled since you left this campus.   More important, it is also an occasion to set up new goals and targets for yourselves, not only in the pursuit of personal and professional ambitions, but above all in the service of our country.

            In El Filibusterismo, Dr. Jose Rizal, whose 150th birthday we celebrate this year, wrote: “It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a great ideal.” 

            The greatest ideals have always been associated with the truth and the common good---with God, family and country.  We all share those ideals.  But sharing them is not enough. We need to work together and produce the synergy that will push our country forward.

            Some scholars argue that although we use the word “nation” in everyday speech, we have not quite become one nation yet; that instead of tending to unite into one cohesive national unit, we tend to splinter and divide from small units to still smaller units. This phenomenon notoriously persists among all our lovely and lovable countrymen abroad, and it is not entirely absent in our midst.

            But every problem has a solution, if we but put our hearts and minds to it.  All it needs is a truly sincere and determined effort. I would like to invite the alumni of Rizal High School here and now to associate themselves actively with this great effort.

            Despite the limited powers of the vice presidency, I am determined that in a few years we should put this country in a position much higher than where it is today.  And this should happen not because we shall have found a great leader who will think for us and do everything for us, but rather because each one of us shall have decided to become leaders in their own right.

            Each of us has his/her idea of leadership.  Albert Camus, the French novelist and Nobel Prize laureate, once said, “Do not walk in front of me, I may not follow.  Do not walk behind me, I may not lead.  But walk beside me and be my friend.” A great leader is a friend, a great friend. A great nation is one where everyone is everybody else’s friend. And the leader of that nation is truly everybody’s friend.

            In these difficult times, we need the spirit of true friendship to resolve dissension, division and conflict in our society, and put our country and people together, especially as we confront the various threats and the turbulence sweeping the world.  Even among parties that are in serious disagreement with each other, or perhaps I should say, especially among parties that are in serious disagreement with each other, the spirit of friendship is a requirement that should not be dispensed with or replaced.

            For friendship does not debase nor distort justice. On the other contrary, it enriches and deepens one’s sense of justice. It allows us to practice charity to the sinner while we condemn his/her sin; to show humanity to the offender even while we prosecute his/her offence.  This is the surest way to keep everybody on the righteous path.  The surest way of giving everyone their just share in the goods and values that the society will ultimately produce.

            This is an unchanging requirement of justice, although we always fall short of it, especially in poor countries.  But being a rich country is no guarantee that such requirement will be met.  You will note that it is in the United States where the latest massive social protest has broken out.

            The “Occupy Wall Street” movement, which has now spread to so many cities outside the U.S., has proclaimed to all and sundry that the 99 percent of the world’s wealthiest economy does not own much more than what is owned by the one percent. One would have thought that such inequality was possible only in a poor developing country. We cannot afford to have such inequality even in our poor country.

            For this reason, this protest movement is instructive. We must learn from it. It tells us---everyone of us---what we have to do for every other Filipino.  We don’t only need to be brothers and sisters to one another.  We need to be our brothers’ keepers.

            In a way this is the mandate I received when the President made me chairman of Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council and therefore housing czar, Presidential Adviser on OFW Concerns, chairman of the Inter-Agency Committee Against Trafficking and head of the Task Force Against Illegal Recruitment.  Wherever a single Filipino is in trouble, I am expected to be there, in person if at all possible.

            It is not an easy job. It entails a lot of hard work and personal sacrifice. But it is its own reward.  Along the way, I have met men and women who try to excel each other in trying to deliver the best service to their countrymen.  That has been part of the reward.

            To be able then to create a culture of service to all our people and to the rest of the world---that is the sublime goal I wish to share with you at this grand homecoming.  I ask you to put your hearts into it, and the world will never be the same again.

            Thank you and good afternoon.​