"Magsaysay is my guy!" Filipino voters had shouted during the election campaign. Last week, grinning like a schoolboy and clasping his hands together in the traditional greeting of the prize ring, "the Guy" (as Filipinos have come to call Ramon Magsaysay) stood triumphantly in the broiling sun of Manila's waterfront park waiting to be inaugurated as the third President of the Philippines Republic. A crowd of more than 200,000 greeted him as he drove up with outgoing President Elpidio Quirino in the official black bulletproof Cadillac. The two stepped out and stood in silence as a band played the national anthem. Then, as Quirino stood back, ready to go off to his farm and retirement, the crowd surged forward in a roar of welcome to Magsaysay.
"Nothing Is Impossible." Dressed in his usual informal outfit—a native sport shirt and pants—sweating freely from the sun and a nagging attack of flu, Magsaysay stood cheerfully waving to friends and saluting the colors as a 40-minute long parade of helmeted Korean veterans, smartly stepping bands and lumbering Sherman tanks filed by. When the last vehicle had passed, Magsaysay waved the cops aside and the delirious crowd surged forward to engulf the presidential reviewing stand. The photographers' platform swayed like a ship at sea and two cameramen fell off, a microphone stand was trampled into a pretzel. With his people breathing almost down his neck, the new President took his oath of office. From a U.S. warship in the harbor and a battery of Philippines artillery on the hill, two 21-gun salutes burst forth simultaneously. Then Magsaysay launched into his inaugural address.
The speech stressed the need for honesty, hard work and clean government, for more regard for the people, and for land reform. From many politicians the Filipinos had heard the words used as cores for resounding platitudes; from Magsaysay they came with earnestness and conviction. Cheer after cheer interrupted the speech. "I have been warned," said the new President, "that too much is expected of this administration, that our people expect the impossible. For this young and vigorous nation of ours nothing is impossible." The crowd went wild with enthusiasm, then, as if to prove his point, the new President blandly ignored the police who were busily clearing a path to his car, and stepped out into the heart of the crowd.
For long moments after that, Ramon Magsaysay all but disappeared from sight. Occasionally his head would bob up like a swimmer's over the surging sea of humanity while official loudspeakers blared: "Please, please, we don't want to mangle the new President." At last Magsaysay was lifted to the shoulders of some of his constituents while others tried to reach up and wipe the sweat from his streaming brow. When he reached his car, one sleeve of his sport shirt had been torn off. His pants were saved only by the safety pins with which he had foresightedly fastened them to his undershirt.