Tomorrow is the National Day of Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico is a self-governing unincorporated territory of the United States located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of the Virgin Islands. Puerto Rico is composed of an archipelago that includes the main island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller islands and keys, the largest of which are Vieques, Culebra, and Mona. The main island of Puerto Rico is the smallest by land area and second smallest by population among the four Greater Antilles, which include Cuba, Hispaniola, and Jamaica.

From 1952 to 2007, Puerto Rico had three political parties which stood for three distinct future political scenarios.

The Popular Democratic Party (PPD) seeks to maintain the island’s “association’’ status as a commonwealth, or have a free sovereign-association status, and has won a plurality vote in referendum on the island’s National Day of Puerto Ricostatus over the last six decades.

The New Progressive Party (PNP) seeks statehood. The Puerto Rican Independence Party seeks independence.

In 2007, a fourth party, the Puerto Ricans for Puerto Rico Party (PPR), arose, it said it seeks to address the islands’ problems from a status-neutral platform.

The Roman Catholic Church has been historically the dominant religion in Puerto Rico, as in the Philippines, Puerto Rico is also home to the largest and richest Jewish community in the Caribbean with 3,000 Jewish inhabitants. Puerto Rico is the only Caribbean island in which the Conservative, Reform, and Orthodox Jewish movements are represented.
We congratulate the government and people of Puerto Rico led by H.E. President Barack Omaba and H.E. Governor Luis Fortuno, and their Embassy in the Philippines, headed by H.E., Ambassador Kristie A. Kenney, on the occasion of its National Day.