Let me bring a message of farewell, and to share a few thoughts with you in this final issue of the Governor’s Monthly Letter.

Like every other Rotarian, I wish the new District Governor, Renier “Prince” Gerochi and his District Team, Godspeed. I pray that the coming Rotary year will be blessed with more opportunities for service.

For more than a hundred years, Rotary has thrived on the idea that men possessed with a desire to serve can best do so through an organization with the same reason for being.

We now stand more than a hundred years past when a small band of men dared to make a difference. They stood the test of time and Rotary is, today, the largest, strongest, and perhaps the most influential civic organization in the world. Understandably proud of this achievement, we realize that Rotary’s leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched numbers, but on how we use our resolve in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

Throughout Rotary’s quest for a better world, we have strived to bring health and nourishment and to foster understanding among peoples. To strive for less would be unworthy of our ideals for service.

Here in our District, I have sought from the beginning the dream to utilize The Rotary Foundation’s resources to its full extent. And I am happy to report that we have surpassed all expectations in matching grant approvals which now amount to TWO HUNDRED FIFTY ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY FIVE THOUSAND US DOLLARS. These amounts will be distributed among the clubs whose projects have been approved for funding by Rotary International.

We also have exceeded our goals for Rotary Foundation contributions. You and all the Rotarians in the District have contributed more than EIGHTY SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS to The Rotary Foundation, the highest ever in our district’s history.

The focus of our district goals, the Day Care Centers have been touched further by your magnanimity. Clubs in our District have been provided with matching grants to fund worthy Day Care Literacy Projects that will have a meaningful impact on Day Care children, now, and in the future.

We have made clear the message of our movement through your public relations campaign.
More than fifty (50%) of our clubs have received the Presidential Citation which speaks highly of how well they have “led the way.”

We have also increased our numbers in the club level and we have welcomed two new clubs (RC Metro Roxas Central and RC Metro Passi) into our District. We have strengthened our bond of friendship and we shared memorable fellowships, especially during our District Conference in Boracay last March 1-3, 2007.

We also fostered better international relationships by exchanges and visits, among which is the dental and medical mission of Japanese Clubs, which I reciprocated by a visit to their District Assembly in Japan. We welcomed and hosted the GSE team from the United States. We also received funding support from various clubs all over the world. More than these, we continue to dream of a better world.

Former American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, “We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.”

Today, our clubs are rendering service to humanity that our founders have never dreamed of. The club they designed now boasts of 1.2 Million members doing humanitarian service all over the world.

And yet, we are now posed with a greater challenge brought by a geometric increase of population and its concomitant demands for food, clothing, shelter, and medicine. Global warming is no longer an academic discussion but a real threat whose adverse effects are now being felt around the world. New and more virulent strains of diseases are threatening our populations.

A major challenge, therefore, is to protect the quality of this world within which we live. There are real and growing dangers to our simple and most precious possessions: the air we breathe; the water we drink; and the land which sustain us. The rapid depletion of irreplaceable minerals, the erosion of topsoil, the destruction of beauty, the blight of pollution, the demands of increasing billions of people, all combine to create problems which are easy to observe and predict but difficult to resolve. If we do not act, the world will be much less able to sustain life than it is now.

But there is no reason for despair. Acknowledging the physical realities of our planet does not mean a dismal future of endless sacrifice. In fact, acknowledging these realities is the first step in dealing with them. We can meet the resource problems of the world -- water, food, minerals, farmlands, forests, overpopulation, pollution -- if we tackle them with courage and foresight.

We know that our vision of an ideal world is always an unfinished creation. Every year we must renew our foundations. Each set of leadership must rediscover the meaning of this vision in the light of its own modern challenges. For this time, the pursuit of happiness is a planet whose resources are devoted to the physical and spiritual nourishment of its inhabitants.This is my challenge to the incoming District leadership.

And of the District leaders who have served with me and “Led the Way” during the past year, I wish to say publicly what I have said in private: I thank them for the dedication and support they have brought to the service of our District.

But I owe my deepest thanks to you, fellow Rotarians, because you gave me this extraordinary opportunity to serve. We have faced great challenges together. We know that future problems will also be difficult, but I am now more convinced than ever that we can meet successfully whatever the future might bring.

As I return home to my own club, the Rotary Club of Metro Iloilo, I am looking forward to the opportunity to reflect and further to assess how we can better serve. I intend to give our new District Governor my support, and I intend to work as a Rotarian, as I have worked as District Governor, for the values this great movement was founded to protect.

Again, from the bottom of my heart, I want to express to you the gratitude I feel.

Thank you, fellow Rotarians.