Manila: PGMA congratulates US President-elect Barack Obama. Florida Filipino newspaper

Philippines: Nation

posted 5 Nov 2008

PGMA congratulates US President-elect Barack Obama

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo led millions of Filipinos today in congratulating United States Democratic Sen. Barack Obama for winning handily the 2008 US presidential elections by defeating rival Republican Sen. John McCain.

“On behalf of the Filipino nation and the Filipino people, I congratulate Senator Barack Obama on his election as the 44th President of the United States,” President Arroyo said in a statement released during the weekly press conference of Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita this afternoon in Malacañang.

“We welcome his triumph in the same vein that we place the integrity of the US electoral process and the choices made by the American people in high regard,” the President added.

The President said the “Philippine government, and the Filipino nation for that matter, had closely observed this elections as it would any important developments in its strongest country-ally.”

She saluted the Filipino-Americans who had actively participated in the electoral process saying that their choices “ultimately and positively impact their Motherland, the Philippines, as much as it will redound to the betterment of the United States of America as a nation and as a people.”

She expressed confidence that bilateral relations between the two countries covering various aspects of political, social, economic, and cultural life would remain strong and stable as ever “with the next administration of the United States.”

The President also said she was looking forward to closely working with President-elect Obama in further strengthening cooperation between the US and the Asia-Pacific region, as well as addressing the concerns of our World War II veterans.

“This much we can expect from a country-ally whose strong relations with our country we have mutually nurtured through decades past and which we both enjoy to this day,” the President said.

“As I am aware if the political and economic challenges that the US president will face that will, in turn, bear on the global scenario, my family and I pray that Senator Obama be guided always by wisdom from the Almighty God, and wish for his continued success and well-being,” the President added. (PE)