A president must be on the job 24/7, ready for any contingency, any crisis, anywhere, anytime.

There isn't a day I do not work at my job, or a waking moment when I do not think through a work-related problem. Even my critics cannot begrudge the long hours I put in. Our people deserve a government that works just as hard as they do.

However much a president wishes it, a national problem cannot be knocked out with a single punch. A president must work with the problem as much as against it, turn it into a solution if she can.

Real government is about looking beyond the vested to the national interest, setting up the necessary conditions to enable the next, more enabled and more empowered generation to achieve a country as prosperous, a people as content, as ours deserve to be.

As a country in the path of typhoons and in the Pacific Rim of Fire, we must be prepared as the latest technology permits to anticipate natural calamities when that is possible, to extend immediate and effective relief when it is not.

I did not become president to be popular. To work, to lead, to protect and preserve our country, our people, that is why I became president.

As your president, I care too much about this nation to let anyone stand in the way of our people's wellbeing.

Better talk than fight, if nothing of sovereign value is anyway lost. Dialogue has achieved more than confrontation in many parts of the world.

Nature did not gift us with a mighty Mekong like Thailand and Vietnam, with their vast and naturally fertile plains. Nature instead put our islands ahead of our neighbours in the path of typhoons from the Pacific.

I stand in the way of no one's ambition. I only ask that no one stand in the way of the people's well being and the nation's progress.

We must weed out corruption and build a strong system of justice that the people can trust.

We fight terrorism. It threatens our sovereign, democratic, compassionate and decent way of life.

The Philippines ranks among top off-shoring hubs in the world because of cost competitiveness and, more importantly, our highly trainable, English proficient, IT-enabled management and manpower.

Individually, we've taken the world on and won; together, we must take on the challenge of creating a new, peaceful, humane and competitive nation and prevail.

For those who want to pick up old fights, we're game, but what a waste of time. Why not join hands instead? Join hands in the biggest challenge of all, where we all win, or we all lose: the battle for the survival and progress of our one and only country.

We have scaled the heights of Mount Everest, dominated the Southeast Asian games, we have won international beauty titles, and of course punched our way to triumph in the boxing world. Our people compete and win every day in every imaginable job throughout the world.

Camiguin, Romblon and Camarines Norte got out of the list of poorest provinces in 2003. With tourism, these provinces can become rich.

To our men and women in the armed services, the huge and deep core of your loyalty has earned the nation's accolade.

The people want government that works for them at every level.

We may disagree among ourselves, but let us never lose sight of that greater battle for one people, one country, one Philippines.

In the area of national security, I urge the swift passage of an anti-terrorism law that will protect rather than subvert, enhance rather than weaken, the rights and liberties that terrorism precisely threatens with extinction.

By and large, our political system has betrayed its promise to each new generation of Filipinos, not a few of whom are voting with their feet, going abroad and leaving that system behind.

We will downsize the government, motivate excess employees to become entrepreneurs, and increase the pay of a lean and mean bureaucracy.

The roof cannot collapse when the value pillars of government and society are sound and strong.