Good morning everyone. President Araneta, Members of the Board, fellow workers and friends.

I see a lot of happy faces. I trust it is because we are all one in "celebrating resilience and hope" for PDIC at 49.

WE have every reason to celebrate what I would call the gift of a special brand of resilience that we in PDIC have been blessed with. Our ability to appease irate depositors, resolve complicated and sensitive transactions, comfort employees being laid off or uninsured depositors who have lost their lifetime savings, keep our cool while dealing with difficult clients be they depositors, bank owners, borrowers, members of congress and even the judiciary, are day to day formidable tasks that goes with the job in PDIC. Even as we recognize the threat of complaints and legal risks, we maintain our resilience in handling these challenges. Yet we manage to enjoy ourselves, and recount at the close of each day gone by, how we have surmounted these challenges and learn from each other’s experience.

Can we give a round of applause to the men and women of PDIC, who have all contributed to its accomplishments for the past 49 years. We should all be proud to be part of what PDIC has accomplished.

For us who are holding the fort now, our job is obviously not done. Even as we are here to devote some time to celebrate our small victories, we have even bigger challenges awaiting us.

We are also therefore celebrating in the HOPE that our tasks ahead will be a little easier and the risks that we face a little less. This is what we all HOPE for.

We have set our goals in our road map and without any doubt we are all determined to chart its course.

We look forward with optimism and commitment, that is, with will power and way power to achieve our goals. That is our HOPE spelled in bold and capital letters in 72 font.

As we ponder on the meaning of HOPE, in celebration of this our 49th anniversary, may we ask ourselves, what can we HOPE to give PDIC in the next year?

How committed are we to work to the best of what we can? to keep an open mind? to think PDIC and work as a team? Are we committed to rise above all our personal concerns and issues, resolve individual differences and think only of the interests of PDIC?

As I formally close this program, I ask you to build on the resilience of our past, and to energize our journey to the future with HOPE by committing our energy and drive in doing our work even better and contributing our utmost.

Happy 49th Anniversary!

* Delivered during the 49^th Founding Year of PDIC on June 22, 2012.