President Ferdinand
E. Marcos (1965-1986)
Father of all mankind,
we ask you to look down upon your people, and fill our hearts with your spirit,
that we may have the grace and the wisdom to look into ourselves, and in so
doing see our weaknesses and our strengths.
So many of us have
lived in corruption, greed and violence, forgetting that this nation - or any
other nation - cannot survive and grow and prosper unless we learn to live as
brothers, striving not for our selfish ends, but for the common good.
Give us strength to
rebuild our lives, leaving forever our selfish, corrupt and derelict ways.
Make us see what we
are and what we could be, open our eyes, our minds and our hearts to do the
things that need to be done, and the things that we can do to make this rich
and beautiful land a joy and comfort to all our people.
We have set for
ourselves great and never-ending tasks; stand by us in our labors and teach us
not to weary nor to lose faith, neither to seek rewards beyond what is just but
rather to see in our work the full measures of our own reward and to see in it
the full expressions of ourselves.
When the day’s toil is
ended, teach us to look to the morrow’s labor as a part of our continuing
sacrifice; bring us not to the temptation of luxury, ease, nor privilege; nor
to the blandishments of power or comfort that corrupt, but make of us a sturdy
race, self-reliant, cheerful and upright.
Teach those who lead
to act with firmness but with humility, with humility but with wisdom, with
wisdom but with justice, and with justice but with compassion, and teach those
who follow the true duties of being men and being members of a community of
men.
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