The Bard from Bohol IV

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In the national elections of 1961, Garcia was defeated by then Vice-President Diosdado Macapagal. In 1971, he was again elected, this time as one of the delegates of the Province of Bohol to the 1971 Constitutional Convention. On June 14, 1971, or three (3) days after he was elected President of the Convention, he died at the age of 74 due to a fatal heart attack.

Garcia’s wisdom continues to inspire many of us. “Life is what you make it”, was his guiding philosophy. According to him "with the necessary consequences of your good deeds, you build the ladder through whose rungs you climb to sublime destiny, you build the dungeon of your own life’s imprisonment or bondage. There is no escape from the universal law of cause and effect. You always reap what you sow."

Studies of the works of Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Cervantes, Ingersoll, Vargas Villa, among others, laid the foundations of Garcia’s life and shaped his path as a public official and as a citizen. On democracy, he said that the “most fundamental, essential and indispensable function of government in democracy is the holding of pure, free, clean, peaceful and honest elections.”

He said, “One election crime breeds a hundred others by imitation or retaliation; all these evil-doings go into the national consciousness of our people, accumulate their hatred, hostility, rebelliousness, demoralization and most negative attitude towards the government, we will come to the stark realization, but too late, that the ineludibe hand of divine retribution may ultimately decree our national dissolution.”

“Only those can remain free who are worthy of it. Freedom must be constantly deserved.” With these words from President Carlos P. Garcia, our fight to remain free continues.

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