Nowadays, there is a tendency to limit the coverage of "environment" to the physical or natural environment. Ideally, however, the coverage is much broader, and could include the intellectual, moral and spiritual environment, which culture also covers.

Taking the broadest possible coverage of environment, therefore, we should be upholding as a core value the preservation and further enrichment of our national environment, which includes our national culture.

This presents us with a very tall challenge. The work we have to do, if we take this core value seriously and try to live by it, is enormous and endless. It may start with cleaning up our physical environment: garbage and sewage disposal, reforestation, the provision of clean air and water, etc. It may end with cleaning up, improving and enriching the intellectual, moral and spiritual air we breathe. The panorama for initiative and socially responsible action, for our country and our people, is very huge indeed.

Lest we be immobilized by the hugeness of the enterprise, we have to be realistic by focusing on strengthening the institutions that help secure and improve our environment and culture.

The family is the primary institution we have in society. That is where values are nurtured and properly transmitted. That is where virtues are acquired and lived habitually. We should spare no effort, therefore, in preserving and strengthening the family as our most important social institution.

The school and the enterprise that organizes productive work are also very important institutions for a national culture that would be promoting and insisting upon excellence, discipline and integrity. The upbringing and education (including formation) that schools provide need to be seamlessly continued by corporations and institutions where people work. Corporate and institutional culture is an important complement for the culture we should be cultivating and spreading in the nation.

Through these institutions – the family, the school, and the enterprise – we should, therefore, be making significant investments for the continuing uplift of all our people. We can not skimp on these investments. They have to be our priority concern, for there can be no higher return for our nation’s progress from any other investment: Investment in the preservation and further enrichment of the environment and culture of our people brings back the highest possible returns to our nation.

Moreover, the investment has to recognize the smart distinction we must make between preserving what is good and further enriching what can be improved. In other words, it is not just a matter of hanging on: We hang on to, and conserve, whatever is good in our environment and culture. But we should also be open to changing what needs to be changed, and bringing to a much higher level what can be made to progress.