Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama Back to School Event Arlington, Virginia September 8, 2009 The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today. I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning. I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where ...

Obama’s message to GMA Monday, 27 July 2009 www.newsbreak.com.ph If President Arroyo has read Barack Obama’s books and if she has been following his speeches, she’ll know what to expect during their meeting in Washington D.C. this week. And she may find discomfort in Obama's rhetoric and ideas. It's because GMA's visit to the US comes at a time of public doubt about her true plans past her term in 2010. Dangling in the air are two options, both aimed at extending her stay in office: amending the Constitution through a constituent assembly, and setting up a "transition council" which she will lead and which will preside over the changing of the Constitution. Clearly, in these two scenarios being peddled by her allies, she's bypassing institutions and violating the Constitution. Obama, who taught Constitutional law for 10 years, is a believer in institutions. He sees the building of institutions as the key to success of any country. What Obama told Africa...

By COMELEC Commissioner Rene V. Sarmiento | 01/19/2009 1:19 PM www.abs-cbnNEWS.com “Martin Luther King said he had a dream, and I feel right now at this time, this is the dream he wanted.”—Judy Brown, 56, Jacksonville bus driver I flew to Washington, D.C. on October 31, 2008 to represent Comelec Chairman Jose A.R. Melo in the 2008 US Presidential Election Program sponsored by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), a nonprofit, democracy development organization that works to give people a voice in the way they are governed. The election program was attended by election officials representing 41 countries. On the second day of the program Sen. Barack Obama was elected after a historic quest for the presidency. The international program participants shared the sentiments of many that Obama’s election was “historic,” “revolutionary” and “record breaking.” In its editorial, Chicago Tribune said: “When he [Obama] was born in 1961, African-Americans risked death merely ...

BY Fidel V. Ramos Newsbreak Magazine www.newsbreak.com.ph The assumption of Barack Obama as 44th President of the U.S. should be welcomed by ordinary Filipinos, given his liberal, anti-racial, pro-minority, and pro-poor tendencies developed throughout his youth, and during his immersion in a diversity of cultures and social justice advocacies. Given the worldwide economic recession plus political instability in several regional hotspots -- and their impacts on the Philippines -- our elected leaders and decision-makers should seriously study and learn from the Obama phenomenon. Leadership is what Barack prepared himself for and sacrificed for. His burning desire to excel was not just to satisfy a grand personal ambition, but to enable him to better serve the suffering and marginalized. Obama's first book, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, published in 1995, was and continues to be a national bestseller. It describes Barack's grandfather, Onyango, a...

Ma'am Liling is right. Every other Tom, Dick and Harry (or Tomasa, Dikya, and Henrietta) has activated his or her youth arm, composed mostly of Sangguniang Kabataan runners. The want to woo the youth vote, but know not what this voting bloc wants, or wishes to have. Barack Obama won because he started a grassroots movement. He thought hard what he wanted to do, and wrote them down in two well-received books. His is a bright mind distilled into wisdom; hope flamed into action. There is no Filipino Barack Obama in sight. None yet. They have to go out of their houses, their cars, their shells, and roam the countryside, talk to the people, there in the grassroots -- where votes cannot be bought, and hopes have been shattered, and the longing for change is keenest. Good luck to us all. *** BY Leonor-Magtolis-Briones The Business of Governance www.abs-cbnNEWS.com The entire world is enthralled with Obama’s victory, including the Philippines. It is reported that in France, the search is ...

By Ducky Paredes Ang Pahayagang Malaya www.malaya.com.ph It is 16 days before the United States of America chooses its president who will preside over the affairs of the USA and (because it is the only superpower left) the world. When the campaign began almost a year ago, the question that came to everyone’s mind was whether America had finally lost its racial bias and would consider all candidates, regardless of race or color, as possible presidents; or would there be a resurgence of racial discrimination? Would a black candidate prove to be a wedge driven into the racial mix that would effectively divide the races once again? Would there be return to race discrimination and a return, on the side of the discriminated, to black power? Now, looking back, those fears seem overstated; the world now sees an America that has completely outgrown its ugly years. No matter what happens to Barack Obama and John McCain, it is clear that any person of any race or color who is a natural-born Ameri...