Duterte’s New Year message to Filipinos: Hold on to hope this 2018

President Rodrigo Duterte INQUIRER.net file photo

President Rodrigo Duterte called on Filipinos on Sunday to embrace the coming year’s uncertainty with a “glimmer of hope” amid the trials the country faced in 2017.

“Let us embrace this coming year’s uncertainty with a glimmer of hope and remain determined in achieving our vision of a better and more prosperous future,” Duterte said in his New Year’s message.

While noting that the scourge of corruption, criminality, illegal drugs, and terrorism straddled the country’s development in 2017, Duterte said he remains hopeful “that our resilience will enable us to overcome and rise above these challenges as one nation.”

In May, Islamic State-inspired combatants attacked and occupied Marawi City, leaving thousands of people displaced and hundreds killed. The 148-day siege, which ended in October, became the longest battle in the country’s history, beating the record of the 92-day Battle of Bataan in 1942.

The year 2017 also marked the government’s intensified crackdown against illegal drugs, which has drawn public condemnation and outrage following the deaths of teenagers Kian Loyd delos Santos, Carl Angelo Arnaiz, and Reynaldo “Kulot” de Guzman.

As the New Year approaches, Duterte urged the public to draw strength “from what we have achieved both as individuals and as a community in the past year.”

“It is my hope that we foster solidarity as we move forward in our pursuit of providing a more comfortable and productive life for all,” he said.

Duterte is in Davao City where he will spend the New Year with his family, according to Special Assistant to the President Christopher “Bong” Go. /jpv

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