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Villegas: Best eulogy for PNoy is taking back dignity, decency

By HANA BORDEY,GMA News

The best eulogy that the Filipinos can give former President Bengino Aquino III is to bring back and never again compromise the dignity of the people, and the decency of the nation’s leaders.

“Eulogies have been written, spoken and shared, but the best eulogy tribute we can pay to our President Noy is to bring back, recover, preserve, safeguard and never again to compromise our dignity as a people and the  decency of our leaders as servants not bosses,” Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said in his homily during the necrological service for President Noynoy.

Villegas, who is also a former president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), asked the congregation at the funeral service to be vigilant.

“Ngayon man kung nagulat tayo sa kanyang biglang pagpanaw, magmasid tayo sana sa buong bansa. Hindi ba dapat tayo  magulat sa nagaganap sa ating paligid?” 

Villegas, who turned emotional while delivering his message, said Aquino’s silence after his presidency “was a  silence of dignity.”

It is the same honesty and dignity that he brought to his service to the nation as president.

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“It was the silence of noble statesmen now rare and forgotten. It was the silence of Daang Matuwid. It was a silence of nobility. The sense of dignity that we truly miss now,” Villegas said.

“He endured and carried the cross of his health problems, with courageous dignity with uncomplaining fortitude hidden from the limelight, known only to God,” he added.

Villegas hoped that Aquino’s death will spark another fire within the Filipino people and treat this as an example of decency and integrity.

“Buti pa si PNoy, malaya na talaga. Sa kaniyang pagtawid sa kabila, naroroon yayakap sa kaniya ang kaniyang dalawang bayaning magulang, proud parents of a noble son. Nakakainggit. There is a new great Filipino in heaven, joining his great Filipino parents,” he said.

“Nakakagulat. Nakakahinayang. Nakakalungkot. Nakakainggit. Sa kabila ng lahat, salamat pa rin sa Diyos. Like Timothy, he can say, I have fought a good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith,” he added. —LBG, GMA News