My Countrymen:
I have taken my oath as President of the Philippines to defend and support the Constitution and to enforce the laws of our country. I assume in all humbleness the complex responsibilities which you have chosen to give me. I pledge my efforts and my life to discharge them with whatever talent, strength, and energy I can muster. But those responsibilities must be shared by the Congress, by the other branches of government, and, in the last analysis, by all people of the Philippines who face together the great test of the future. I would not be content to assume this office, I would not have the hope to discharge the duties assigned me if I were not confident that my countrymen are ready and capable of sharing in full measure the work and sacrifices which lie ahead. Certainly no people in recent history have been called upon to surmount the obstacles which confront us today. But I have supreme faith in the ability of our people to reach the goals we seek. I ask from the nation the full and undivided support of heart, mind, and energy for the necessary tasks which await us.
In our traditions there are ample sources of inspiration. From the recent past we have the standard of dynamic leadership erected by Manuel Quezon, that mighty champion of independence and great benefactor of the masses of the people. We have the spotless integrity, and noble patriotism of Sergio Osmeña who grasped the banner of leadership when the incomparable Quezon was taken from us.
Our appointment with destiny is already upon us. In five weeks we will be a free Republic. Our noble aspirations for nationhood, long cherished and arduously contended for by our people will be realized. We will enter upon a new existence in which our individual lives will form together a single current, recognized and identified in the ebb and flow of world events as distinctly Filipino.
Yet look about you, my fellow citizens. The tragic evidence of recent history stares at us from the broken ruins of our cities and the wasting acres of soil. Beneath the surface of our daily strivings lie deep the wounds of war and economic prostration. The toppled columns of the Legislative Building before which we stand are mute and weeping symbols of the land we have inherited from the war.
Unemployment is increasing as the United States Armed Forces decrease the tempo of activities here. Our soldiers are being discharged in growing numbers to swell the ranks of those who must find work and livelihood. Many of those who work are employed in trades dependent on the rapidly shrinking expenditures of the Army and Navy.
There is hunger among us. In the mountain provinces and in other far-flung areas of our land, children starve. Prices race with wages in the destructive elevators of inflation. The black market with all its attendant evils of disrespect for law and public morality thrives in the channels of commerce.
Plagues of rats and locusts gnaw at our food supplies. Public health and sanitation have been set back a quarter of a century.
Housing for most of our urban citizens is shocking in its inadequacy and squalor. Disease and epidemic threaten, and we have to thank the Divine Providence that the toll of death is still relatively small.
Our communications are destroyed, stolen or disrupted, and many of our countrymen are still today cut off from national ide. Schoolhouses are burned and teachers have been killed, our educational system is in large measures a shambles.