New Year wishes focus on peace, polls

PRESIDENT Gloria Arroyo expressed hope that the country’s economic recovery and growth would continue in 2010 while Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales of Manila called on the faithful to prepare themselves for the elections next year saying discernment should begin as early as the end of 2009.

The President, in her New Year’s message, said she is also looking forward to the first-ever automated polls in the country.

“We emerge from the year 2009 with more solid faith, more courage, more concern for our brethren, and greater determination to work harder to achieve even more.

“In this spirit, let us cast away the things that set us against each other. Let us thank the Lord for good health, glad tidings and good cheers. Let us thank Him for all the times He has been there for us through family, friends and even strangers who stood by us in good times and in bad. Let us ask for His graces and blessings as we start another year. And as we continue and go on with the many journeys of our nation’s life, let us offer to Him our nation,” she added.

Cardinal Rosales said Filipinos should learn from the previous elections in selecting government officials.

Rosales said the current state of the country is a clear manifestation that there were wrong choices made in the past electoral exercises.

“Arrogant leaders, who, in the past, thought that the nation could not go forward without them, had always been failures; and they had, unfortunately, brought the country down with them,” the cardinal said.

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