Obama wins!

I knew it. I was right in my fearless forecast. Sen. Barack Obama II is the next US President. Of Kenyan blood. Of African lineage.

BBC News declared it boldly.

Obama wins historic US elections.
Democratic Senator Barack Obama is elected the first black president of the United States.

His rival John McCain accepted defeat, saying "I deeply admire and commend" Mr Obama. He called on his supporters to lend the next president their goodwill.

Mr Obama captured the key battleground states of Pennsylvania and Ohio, before passing the essential figure of 270 electoral college votes at 0400 GMT, when projections showed he had also taken California and a slew of other states.

There's much to learn in this US Elections. A new school of political perspective has taken roots. There's so much vigor and strength in Obama. He represented new ways of looking at things. New blood. New direction. New international policies. Change.

Obama was a symbolic candidate. He was every man's story. From a broken family, he was raised by a single mom. He studied hard all his way up to the best universities in the U.S. As an adult, Obama admitted that during high school he used marijuana, cocaine, and alcohol, which he described at the 2008 Civil Forum on the Presidency as his greatest moral failure. Barack is described by his campaign website so vividly as

Barack Obama was raised by a single mother and his grandparents. They didn't have much money, but they taught him values from the Kansas heartland where they grew up. He took out loans to put himself through school. After college, he worked for Christian churches in Chicago, helping communities devastated when steel plants closed. Obama turned down lucrative job offers after law school to return to Chicago, leading a successful voter registration drive. He joined a small law firm, taught constitutional law and, guided by his Christian faith, stayed active in his community. Obama and his wife Michelle are proud parents of two daughters, Sasha, 10 and Malia, 7.

I don't know how his victory would impact on the Filipino nation. But I feel that he will have new ways of strengthening our diplomatic relationship with the U.S. He will have better treatment and preference to migrant workers in the U.S., picking from his own family's experience when his father, a Kenyan, also went to the U.S. not so much to find him a living but to study.

I guess Obama would have a big heart for the Filipino workers and the Filipino communities not just in US territories but elsewhere around the world. It will not just be for the Filipinos. Any other race would be given much attention. His family was once like them.

At his age, just 6 years earlier than me, he is yet at the peak of his youth. Fearless to try new ways, he might change the image of the US from being a guardian of democracy through military power to something yet unprecedented. Or will his still aggressive youth be more ferocious than his predecessors?

Obama will be starting his presidency at a critical point where the US was yet suffering from the greatest financial slump experienced in this highly economically advanced world. I sometimes ask myself where have all the summa cum laudes of the best business and financial schools gone? Is it not that the US economy is monitored and run by the best financial minds the world can afford? How come it has become so vulnerable to financial meltdown that an impending recession is now being feared? Obama has to move decisively and wisely. His financial policies will definitely make ripple effects worldwide.

I wish that in his presidency, the US will no longer be so paranoid on non-US citizens. The US has crafted practically all kinds of laws and I feel that most of these are laws of restrictions trying to control, catalog, record, document movements of individuals especially non-US citizens. Need I say especially on those coming from the Middle East?

I felt I was also victorious in his winning the US Presidential Elections. Obama represented all other races worldwide. He is the pride of Kenya. He is the pride of the colored. He is the man of the underdog. He is the president of the masa.

I hope he will not fail the people. I hope that he will truly be a symbol of change.

To Obama, be our President. Congratulations!