VIDEO:

TRANSCRIPT:

Speech
of
His Excellency Benigno S. Aquino III
President of the Philippines
After planting a tree in his ancestral Hongjian Village in Fujian Province

[Delivered in Hongjian Village, Zhangzhou municipality, Fujian Province, China on September 3, 2011]

Today, a seed planted by your forefathers far away has come back to sit in the shade of the ancestral tree. It is an honor to see the Ancestral Hall of the family Xu and to see the tree my mother planted 23 years ago. I cannot help but recall the gracious words of Premier Wen: the tree your mother planted has flourished and put in deep roots.

I am grateful to all of you for the honor you continue to give to my mother. I was particularly happy to hear that the soon-to-be finished Sino-Philippines Friendship Memorial Hall in this park will be dedicated to her memory.

We are in a place steeped in memory and tradition, and rich in legends that continue to tie us together across the seas.

Before I arrived here, I was told that years ago, on its own, this tree split in two. Nature has its own laws and surely this natural phenomenon was not a prophecy—for I never aspired to reach the same heights and achieve the same success as my mother. And yet, by the will of my people, I stand here in the same position she occupied—as President of the Philippines—bearing the same responsibility she had, to change peoples’ lives for the better.

In Beijing and Shanghai, whenever I was asked how I felt about coming here, I said that I wanted to see the land where so many successful Filipino Chinese came from. I wanted to see the landscape that gave birth to so many who braved long journeys, to settle in a foreign land, to build families, homes, and successful enterprises.

Their success brought not only prosperity, but honor to their kinsmen, whether in the Philippines or China.

Ours, then, are not only ties of family and blood, they are ties of shared virtues: of hard work, study, loyalty, dedication, and empathy. Our ties are relationships that have transcended kilometers, generations, and borders because they are built on shared principles.

What we want to do now is to make these relationships even stronger, and to fulfill our duty to make certain that our friendly relations are built on the shared principle that our efforts ultimately improve the lives of our respective peoples. This is a collective task. Together with me, hundreds of businessmen from the Philippines went to Beijing to meet your country’s political and economic leaders. And at this very moment, those who accompanied me on this trip are meeting with their counterparts from Fujian to discuss opportunities to further expand the economic exchange between our countries.

In my country we have a saying: that if one is to move forward, one must know how to look back. So I would like to thank the people of Hongjian—all my distant cousins, aunts, and uncles—for their warm welcome, and for being among the many who give me the strength to carry on and succeed.

Hong jian de běn jiārén, zhong xīnyǎn di xiè xiè nǐmen.

Allow me to give you a parting gift—memorabilia from my mother as a reminder to all of us, as well as future generations, of the ties of history that bind us together; of the strong and centuries-old relationship between the Philippines, Hongjian village, and Fujian province. I leave to your care this tree that I have planted. May its roots also be deep, and may our kinsmen one day, enjoy rest under the shade of what we have planted, as you and I have enjoyed the shade of what my mother planted in her time.

Thank you and good day.