June 1, 2001
Dear "Friends of Winnie Monsod",
I wish that I could personally thank all of you who helped in my
senatorial
campaign. Since I will not be able to do that, I hope you donıt mind
that I
am thanking you through the internet.
I write from the apartment of my daughter and son-in-law in New Haven,
Connecticut where our family was blessed on May 30 with the gift of
life in
our first grandchild. She is a beautiful baby, all pink and bright
sparkling
eyes. Her name is Gabrielle. God has a way of giving us something far
better
than we expect or deserve.
Iım sorry that we didnıt make it. As my sister Winkie said, "we fought
the
good fight, with all that we had. The beauty of it is we fought for a
cause
a chance at better governance, a chance at decency, grace and
dignity."
Victory, they say, comes in many forms and in its own time. And,
indeed, we
have many things to be grateful for.
For my part, I had the extraordinary privilege of working with so many
unselfish people who contributed their time, money, food, transport
services, campaign materials, media time, artistic/professional
talents,
office help, equipment, and much more. Much more than I can ever
acknowledge.
To me, everyoneıs contribution is encapsulated in the man in tsinelas
from
Las Pinas who pressed into my hand what obviously was hard-earned money
two one-hundred pesos bills refused to identify himself and said in
Pilipino, "Just make a better future for my children." Or the teenager
who
was not old enough to vote but who made a comic book about me and, with
the
help of friends, distributed them in the street corners of Cebu. Or the
civil servant in Bukidnon who used half a monthıs salary to make
campaign
materials because he could not see a single poster of mine in his
hometown.
All of you have a story to tell about the campaign, mostly inspiring
and
sometimes unpleasant. I wish you would take the time to write about it,
not
to exult yourself, but to record it as a part of our nationıs history,
and
your legacy to others. I thought we might share, or perhaps compile,
them
because we often forget that our greatness as a nation is the sum of
what
ordinary citizens do, something like a jigsaw puzzle which cannot be
completed until everyone puts down his piece.
These stories are the reason, is it not, why we continue, together or
in
separate ways, to work for our country? They are too precious to keep
to
ourselves.
Thank you again and God bless you.
WINNIE MONSOD
2304 Morado St., Makati City
P.S. I would appreciate if you could forward this letter to those who
helped in the campaign but did not see or did not have access to this
letter. Thanks.
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Winnie Monsod is a respected economist and professor at the University
of the Philippines. She failed to make it to the Senate last elections.
