SPONSORSHIP SPEECH
Senate Resolutions Commending and Congratulating Hidilyn Diaz
Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph G. Recto
27 July 2021

Years ago, a small girl in Zamboanga carried boxes of fish to market to help feed her family.

That woman last night with one mighty lift ended her people’s hunger for Olympic gold.

Whether it was for her family or for her country, she lifted more than what she was expected to. But last night was historic and sweet.

With one heave, she hoisted the Philippines for the first time atop the winner’s podium, for which her countrymen waited for almost 100 years.

With one lift, she raised the spirits of 110 million people, battered by the pandemic but not beaten, craving for one inspiring story that will break the gloomy monotony of long days looking for jobs and jabs and endless quarantine nights.

Her victory came at the right time when hope is in short supply.

Her triumph generated so much joy that it boosted our Gross National Happiness.

Her win inspires millions of young girls that they, too, can surmount the odds. Her barbell broke the glass ceiling women encounter and shattered the trope that they are the inferior sex.

And her success will be for naught if we do not, as leaders, draw energy and inspiration from it.

To win the gold, she met the Olympic ideals of faster, higher, stronger, together.

To win our future, we must achieve: Faster economic recovery. Higher scores in all socioeconomic cards. Stronger COVID response. And doing it together, which is the most important.

Hidilyn had done hers. It is time for all of us in the government to do the heavy lifting now.

For that is the only way to honor her.

Thank you, maraming salamat, daghang salamat, muchas gracias Hidilyn, for ending the quadrennial heartbreak that every Olympics had caused us until you came along.