Name: Verma Mariano

Date: January 27, 2021

My respect to Almighty God for bringing us here today, to our proud parents, faculty
members, barangay council, visitors, ladies and gentlemen, good morning to all of us. It is a
great honor for me to be talking with all of you today on this very exciting moment of your lives.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to address such a talented gathering of hard-working
students. This is a great day for you and I am happy to be sharing it with you. According to
Martin Luther King Jr., "If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk
then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward". On my own understanding
on that qoute, even though everyone is against us, you have to keep moving forward. Even if you
fall on the deepest hole, even you got wounds because of them, even lightning hits you, no one
can stop you. First of all, I don't know why I am here standing in front of all of you. I just
received a letter coming from this school inviting me to join you as a guest speaker, at first, I
really don't want to attend but then I realized they invited me here for a reason. I am here today
because there's a reason behind it and that is to share something with you, it's good to be back
here. I remember my high school life just right now and if I reminisce it I want to laugh out loud
and sometimes I want to scold myself because of what I've showed or actions before, that was a
total embarrassment for me. High school life was our most thrilling yet exciting part of our lives,
high school crushes, heartthrobs and so on were also part of our most thrilling yet exciting part of
our lives. To tell you frankly, I had crushes when I was on high school, crushes I say cause
there's a lot of them 4 or 6 I think. We made our crushes our inspirations everyday so you woke
up early and go to school plastering our wide smile as if there's no tomorrow, believe it or not
but it's true. We're looking for them from a far and that's enough for us, we're contented to be just
like that.
We all experience our greatest downfall and I have one I consider bullying and
backstabbing as one of my greatest downfalls, I down myself that time and then insecurities ate
me, I did wish to be beautiful, have a white skin, tall and so on. Sometimes I don't want to attend
school because of what I've experience but then I realized nothing's perfect. There's no perfect, I
mean nothing's perfect with God's creation. Of course, stress is one of the challenges in our lives.
Researches, projects, reports and so on were the things made our stress but it's all worth it. It's all
worth it I say because we overcome it all and we would continue our journey in our college life,
it's hard but I know you can do it. Don't think negatively, always think positive at all aspect.
You're glad, I mean we're glad because we reached this stage of our lives and we're glad to our
parents who supported us and want us to study, not just like the others who is there wasting their
time to a nonsense thing. Rich or poor, color differences, disable or not, education is the only one
which connects us all. There's no status in life and differences in education, even you told you're
the richest person on Earth, rules will always be followed inside the school. But of course, some
of the rich peoples use their money to let someone down as if it makes them happy and
contented, that happens for real although I didn't witness one. Anyway, just keep on reaching
your dreams and pursue the course you wanted and not by force. Keep on thinking positive and
your life would like a Cloud 9, the feeling as if you're not carrying a huge rock on your back and
the feeling as if you're floating and a warm and genuine smile plastered on your lips. Don't you
ever think you're alone because Almighty God were always at our side or at our back watching
and guiding us, friends, someone special and so on leaves us without a valid reason but He
would never leave behind us.
Faith in God, trust yourselves, love yourself before you love someone, reach your
dreams, dream high as long as you can make it, that are my words I want you to treasure and
keep it on your mind. I wish you all the best and hope that you won't change your attitude toward
everyone. I strongly believe going by your antecedents and the manner you have conducted
yourselves over the years and the skills and knowledge we have imparted in you, you will surely
overcome them. I want to implore my dear outgoing students to always see yourselves as a good
ambassador and never allow selfish interest to blemish the integrity you have nurtured over the
years. Be kind and good to people you meet on your way up, think big thoughts and be optimistic
in whatever you are doing. I bid you farewell and wish you best of luck in your days ahead. May
God bless you all. Thank you very much.