I guess my religious faith sustained me more than anything else. Family is also very important. If I didn't have children, it would have been too difficult. Even if you are strong, you still need people who would support you all the way.

The only thing I can really offer the Filipino people is my sincerity.

Faith is not simply a patience that passively suffers until the storm is past. Rather, it is a spirit that bears things - with resignations, yes, but above all, with blazing, serene hope.

It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.

I am not embarrassed to tell you that I believe in miracles.

You, the foreign media, have been the companion of my people in its long and painful journey to freedom.

I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life.