Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Chair­man/Ch­agua­nas West MP Jack Warn­er says it is im­por­tant to en­cour­age a spir­it of pa­tri­o­tism among T&T youth. Warn­er made this com­ment dur­ing his 35th Re­pub­lic Day mes­sage. He said: "It is my hope that by re­flect­ing on our his­to­ry, pa­tri­o­tism may be in­spired, es­pe­cial­ly among our youth. If we teach them to ap­pre­ci­ate their coun­try, per­haps, they will be in­spired to stay on the path of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty." He added: "Find a minute this week­end to read the na­tion­al pledge with your chil­dren, dis­cuss with them the na­tion­al em­blems and the an­them, and their sig­nif­i­cance.

Make an ef­fort to get some of the pa­tri­ot­ic lit­er­a­ture and songs and as you read and lis­ten to them recom­mit your­self to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment and restor­ing our beloved na­tion to its pris­tine glo­ry." Warn­er al­so not­ed: "Knowl­edge is pow­er. We must know our his­to­ry. It is on­ly by learn­ing about such things that we can ap­pre­ci­ate their im­por­tance and not take them for grant­ed." Among T&T's na­tion build­ings songs are God Bless Our Na­tion and the Na­tion­al An­them writ­ten by Pat Castagne. Ze­ro­ing on the im­por­tance of Re­pub­lic Day, Warn­er stressed equal op­por­tu­ni­ty and so­cial mo­bil­i­ty for all. He cit­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's po­lit­i­cal as­cen­sion and his strides as out­stand­ing ex­am­ples of in­di­vid­ual suc­cess.

Warn­er said the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship was not guilty of abus­ing its pow­er dur­ing the state of emer­gency. Warn­er said: "Gov­ern­ment can­not be ac­cused of abus­ing pow­er or ex­tend­ing it­self be­yond what is per­mis­si­ble un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion. The trust be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the peo­ple is main­tained." Warn­er urged the pop­u­lace to ed­u­cate them­selves, seek to im­prove the so­ci­ety and ful­ly ap­pre­ci­ate beau­ti­ful T&T.