Let us stay united as a people.

The breakup of a country like Yugoslavia was most unfortunate. It lasted for 28 long and troubled years.

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is now made up of six republics: Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia. The largest among them is Serbia, while Montenegro is the smallest.

Yugoslavia had an area of 255,400 square kilometers and was the ninth largest country in Europe.

At 12 noon on Thursday, 30 June 2022, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. assumed office as the 17th President of the Republic of the Philippines, delivering his inaugural address in front of the National Museum in Manila.

Here are some key statements from the newly sworn-in President’s speech.

On unity and electoral mandate:

“When my call for unity started to resonate with you, it did so because it echoed your yearning, mirrored your sentiments, and expressed your hopes for family, for country and for a better future. That is why it reverberated and amplified as it did, to deliver the biggest electoral mandate in the history of Philippine democracy.”

“I believe that if we focus on the work at hand, and the work that will come to hand, we will go very far under my watch. You believe, too. And I listened to your voices who are calling for unity, unity, and unity.”

On 25 May 2022, Congress, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers, proclaimed Bongbong Marcos President-elect of the Philippines in the fastest canvassing of votes in the country’s history. Marcos Jr. garnered 31.63 million votes and led his closest rival, Leni Robredo, by over 16 million votes.

On his dream for the nation:

“A future of sufficiency, even plenty of readily available ways and means to get done what needs doing — by you, by me. We do not look back, but ahead. Up the road, we must take to a place better than the one we lost in the pandemic.”

“Indeed, ours was the fastest growing economy in the ASEAN byways now outdated. We shall be again, by radical change in the way the world must now work to recover what we lost in that fire, and move on from there.”

When President Marcos Jr. assumed office, the country was in crisis with ballooning debt, depleting currency, high inflation, and rising cost of fuel. The President adopted a borrowing mix that is 30 percent foreign and 70 percent domestic to minimize the foreign exchange risk. The government must ensure that the economy will continue to grow strongly in the medium term to outgrow its debt.

Let us work together, solve the problems and save our country.

“We are here to repair a house divided to make it whole, and to stand strong again in the Bayanihan way, expressive of our nature as Filipinos. We shall seek, not scorn, dialogue, listen respectfully to contrary views, be open to suggestions coming from hard thinking and unsparing judgment but always from us Filipinos.”

“So let us all be part of the solution that we choose; in that lies the power to get it done. Always be open to differing views but ever united in our chosen goal. Never hesitating to change it, should it prove one thing.”

(To be continued)