Taking the lead..

One of the oral activities we had for our Public Speaking class was speech delivery. We were asked to do a read speech. We were assigned to an occasion and would then make a speech about it. The occasion assigned to me was a culminating activity for a youth congress in Cebu City. I had to assume a persona for this one. Here is a copy of the speech I made.


Fellow SK officials, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon!

Today marks a significant milestone in this Youth Congress. Despite the vigorous efforts exerted in discussing the main purpose of leadership, at least at the end of the day we can say that our labor is not in vain. We can be proud that even at our young age, we can discuss issues that would enhance our leadership qualities and would make us effective as servants for the youth in our community. Let me congratulate you all for a job well done!

Leadership would always be leadership. Time does change. Technology continues moving forward. Culture varies from place to place. But the true principles of leadership are constant and will always remain constant. Leadership principles stand in the test of time. They cannot be questioned. They are irrefutable.

Leadership guru and author John Maxwell in his bestselling book entitled “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” believes that Leaders may be born but leadership can be developed nonetheless.

Globally, as well as locally, there are a lot of people filling prominent roles who are not qualified at all. Without any doubt, there are numerous leadership positions in our country currently occupied by people who are just placed there by any unjustified means and reasons that they are leaders. Politics, particularly in our country, ironically explains the lack of reliable government leaders today.

And so, as we now completely understand the positive qualities of leadership like: self-confident but humble, decisive, creative and innovative, visionary, good-motivator, independent, has a good sense of humor and so on, we are now challenged to develop these as we serve our constituents. Let us be constantly reminded that we are elected in this position, as SK officials in our respective barangays for a noble cause. I hope that these words would stick into our minds. We are here because our people trust us. We are here to serve the youth of our barangay. We are here to lead by example.

Giving up our responsibility in exchange of our personal interests is just like betraying the trust of the people, frustrating the ideas or perception of our youth today.

I challenge you to pursuit your high-minded or worthy goals for the prosperity and success of our youth. If we will not do the right way of modeling them to be good leaders, if we would not take the lead, who would do it for them?

Thank you and good day!

poverty

Poverty - the state of not having enough money to take care of basic needs such as food, clothing, and housing.

–Encarta Dictionary Tools

We cannot deny the fact that poverty is one of the major dilemmas our country is facing right now. Probably, this is one of the reasons why we find it difficult to improve as a nation.

There are actually a lot of reasons why poverty continues to be a major problem particularly here in the Phillipines. Most of the people blame it all to the government. Majority says it is because of corruption. A number of people also say that the system of the collection of taxes is the problem. Others think that the dearth of job opportunities here in our country should be blamed. Some say that it is because of overpopulation.

Whatever the reason is, it should not be our focus. Keeping on attacking the actions of the government and blaming it all to them would not help solve this big dilemma that we have. It could even worsen things.

It does not mean that because we are living in a country where poverty is present, we would not do something. We should not think that because we our lacking resources, we would not be successful anymore. Many among the successful people of our country today began from scratch. Henry Sy, to name one, came from a very poor family. He would even walk barefoot from his house just to go to school. But because of his hard work and determination, he was able to put up several establishments. One of these is the very famous Shoe Mart (or SM as what we call it) that has many branches all over the Philippines. In fact, Henry Sy is one of the top three billionaires of our country today.

During our Philippine history days, we have learned that Andres Bonifacio grew up in a poor family. He lost his parents at an early age. He stood as the parents of his younger siblings. Despite the bitter events that occurred in his life, he did not allow it to destroy his life. Instead, he looked for ways to survive and continued on with his life. He sold canes and fans to earn a living. He did self-studying by reading books.

How about us? Are we just going to sit down and wait for a blessing from heaven? We should also do our part. What can we do to help solve this problem? If we would only have a lot of Henry Sys and Andres Bonifacios here in our country, then no doubt we could surely get out of this mess. We should fight against poverty. We should not make poverty a hindrance to success.

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