President Rodrigo Roa Duterte congratulated Wednesday weightlifting champion Hidilyn Diaz for her historic gold medal win in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and rewarded her with an additional P3 million aside from the monetary incentive from the government.

During a Zoom call with Diaz, the President urged her to forget the “bad things that happened in the past.”

“The nation is ecstatic about your achievement. Your achievement is the achievement of the Philippine nation,” President Duterte told Diaz. “So we are extremely proud. We cannot express even in the words of an athlete how we should really be shouting hallelujah. Pero salamat naman sa pagtiis mo.”

“I hope that the years of toil, the years of disappointments and the years na hindi maganda ang nangyari in the past, just forget them.”

The Olympic hero arrived on Wednesday in Manila after claiming on Monday the country’s first Olympic gold in the women’s 55 kgs.

Aside from P3-million reward given by the President, she will receive the P10-million incentive from the government on top of other monetary incentives from private individuals.

At the same time, the President accorded Diaz the Presidential Medal of Merit and also gave her a fully furnished house and lot in her hometown in Zamboanga.

A four-time Olympian, Diaz ended the Philippines’s near century-long wait for Olympic gold after the country first competed in the Games in 1924.

Prior to her win on Monday, she won a silver medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics. PND