Vice President Jejomar Binay said the canonization of Mother Teresa will bring great inspiration and hope to millions of Filipino Catholics.
“Mother Teresa was very close to the Filipino people. Her visits to the country left us with renewed faith and her dedication to the poor inspired us to do more for those in need,” Binay said on Saturday.
“As an undying symbol of mercy and compassion, I pray that her canonization reminds us of her passion to service and that it further inspires us to show genuine concern for the sick and the needy,” the Vice President added.
Mother Teresa is the founder of the Missionaries of Charity, a religious order that today operates in 133 countries and runs hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy, and tuberculosis, as well as soup kitchens, mobile clinics, orphanages, and schools.
She was born to Albanian parents in Skopje, Macedonia on Aug. 26, 1910, but spent most of her life in India caring for the poorest of the poor.
The Vatican earlier announced that Mother Teresa, who died in 1997, was on her way to sainthood after being beatified in 2003.
Pope Francis earlier approved a decree that the nun had performed a second miracle 11 years after her death. The miracle involved the healing of a man in Santos, Brazil who was suffering from a serious viral brain infection.
She is expected to be officially canonized in Rome on Sept. 4, 2016.