Good Evening everyone.

To my family, my dear friends, guests (insert

acknowledgment) and to the pillars of our City of Naga, the Chiong family, thank you
for joining me tonight.

Today, I asked everyone to gather and join me as I celebrate another year in my life.
However, tonight is far more than a milestone birthday. We celebrate tonight for so
many reasons. One of which is that for a quite sometime, I have celebrated my
birthdays from different time zones. Tonight is the first birthday in 43 years that I will
celebrate here at home---in the City of Naga. Home not only because I was born here
and my roots came from Tina-an but also I consider this home because it is where I
see family and friends. As the good adage goes, “home is where the heart is”. I am
home tonight and that means I get to celebrate my birthday with my family by blood,
family by choice and friends.

For the past 6 years, my classmates from Batch ’73 of St. Catherine School, have
celebrated my birthday as they always gather on this day sans my presence. By that
simple gesture, I feel their love towards me and I greatly appreciate that. My friends
from Batch ’73 are like stars in the day, you may not see them always but you know
that they are there --- ALWAYS. With that I say that tonight we also celebrate the gift
of friendship. In a sense, my friends from my batch allowed me to be as crazy that I
can be but I also know that they will be the first to protect my interests. We celebrate
because circumstances have separated us for a long time but we still found the
connection in the past years to make our bond even stronger. Thank you for opening
your hearts and home to me and for sharing the love all these years.

Lastly, tonight we also celebrate about how wonderful life is. Grateful for the fact
that we are still here still making the most what we can do during this borrowed
time. Thankful for all the experiences that made us better and taught us valuable
lessons. Life is great and we shall enjoy living. We shall continue to enjoy this journey
and make the most of it.

Tonight, I can say that I am more than blessed. Each and everyone here is my life’s
blessing and for that again, we celebrate. I hope that we will have fun tonight so
please enjoy the spread. Enjoy the food and place the beer and wine in the belly not
in the head.

Once again, thank you and let us celebrate.