Being President is like running a cemetery: You’ve got a lot of people under you and nobody’s listening.   -- Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States 

The exercise of humor by President Clinton does not hide the fact that all Presidents are human beings. And all mortals come to die and unless the human remains are cremated, all end up in the cemetery.

As the founder of the now four-year-old (and counting) “Philippine Presidents’ Day in Los Angeles,” I have invited since March 17, 2005, community leaders to talk about anecdotes in the lives of the former Philippine Chief Executives who have passed away. The departed President Ramon Magsaysay received the most number of tributes, which all attested to his being perceived to be the Philippines’ most-honest and best-liked President. In fact, I myself wrote this tribute to President Magsaysay,

Reinventing the "Ramon Magsaysay Line" in Solving Philippine Political Problems

In 2003, I wrote then for the www.pinoyonboard.com of New York this piece of advice for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and which was reprinted in this website: Even Presidents Write Their Own Eulogy

This editor and our staff express our sympathy and prayers to former Philippine President Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino, who has been reported to be suffering from colon cancer.

Perhaps there is time for President Cojuangco-Aquino to address the issues contained in my March 30, 1995, "confidential letter" to the Board of Trustees of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation. The said letter protested the foundation’s decision to give her the “Woman of the Year.” The letter has been reproduced in this website,

Not Getting Mad at, But Getting Even With, Tita Cory

Whether President Cojuangco-Aquino chooses to make peace for instance with the tenants of the Hacienda Luisita is her call to make, especially now that she has been made aware more of her own mortality. She too is the best person to actually “write” her own eulogy.

I penned in the www.filamimage.com the lesson (for the Philippine President) of Phil Mickelson blowing up a comfortable lead to lose the 2006 United States Open at the last hole. I wrote: “It may be Mickelsonian (sic) if President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo tries to go all out to play politics and win a third term (or extend her term) in the guise of changing the form of government, i.e., from presidential to parliamentary. At this stage of her presidency, she only has to bring the best out of any circumstance, be frugal when it comes to governmental expenditure and exercise the diligence of a good mother of a family (or of a nation). No more, no less. And if she does all of these steps routinely, history may be kind to her presidency.” This website has since reprinted that article and readers may still read it at this hyperlink:

What Phil Mickelson and President Arroyo Have in Common

In the final analysis, very few Filipinos – or for that matter very few Americans – are given the historic job of being President. Perhaps it is not too late for Presidents George W. Bush and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to read (again) the May 14, 2007, article in the Newsweek magazine about President Harry Truman and try to salvage their presidency, so that presidential historians may someday write kindly about their administration. I summarized the article in this link:

Harry Truman: A Lesson for the Philippine Presidency

Yes, even Presidents are mortals. And only they can actually make their respective roles look great or appear disastrous in the nation’s history. # # #

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