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PUBLISHED: Student & Campus Section, Manila Bulletin, 12 November 2008 Issue (Page F-3)

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It was a normal Thursday afternoon, driving home after spending the day with my father. We were about five minutes away, but it felt more like ten since the road was congested. I was slowly preparing to turn right on one of the streets when a taxi, coming from the adjacent street, came speeding towards us.

I had the right of way, and I wasn’t in the mood to get hit by another car. So, I hit the brake, figuring that he would see me and stop as well, or at the very least, give him enough space to inch through. But he was moving much too fast to pass through, though, and my dad, a very experienced driver, knew it.

Worse off, he was only looking to his left (he probably didn’t want to get cut by the next car); he neglected to look back in the direction his car was turning. My dad lowered his windshield and shouted to catch the attention of the driver, who was centimeters away from making a dent on our car’s right side. I finally had to honk at him. This caught his attention, and he went on a full stop.

But instead of letting me pass, he quickly started maneuvering to get out of the tight space. But he was careless and hit a tricycle parked on the curb.

During those last few minutes on the wheel after the incident, I couldn’t stop thinking of the taxi driver. I was still a bit angry, but I did feel bad for him. Being a taxi driver isn’t exactly an easy line of work: even if you drive for long hours, usually there’s just barely enough income to bring home at the end of the day. Maybe he was half-asleep on the wheel, tired and sore from long hours of continuous driving. Maybe he was hungry; perhaps he didn’t eat lunch in order to save some money. Or maybe his mind was somewhere else, thinking of how he was going to scrape up enough cash to pay his overdue bills. I pretty much transformed him into a pitiful creature in my head.

Did that excuse his lousy driving? No, it didn’t. Considering how many of the car accidents reported on television involve public utility vehicles and their kaskasero drivers, the last thing we want to do is to vindicate their being ill-mannered on the road. Besides, I too could have been hungry, or tired, of thinking of my overdue bills.

But the fact is, I wasn’t.

I’ve been on a couple of taxi rides alone myself, and I’ve met my share of taxi drivers, some of whom can get quite talkative about their lives. Of course, you never really know whether they’re telling you the truth, and you always have to be wary of the things you reveal or the routes they’re taking. But sometimes, they drawl on for such prolonged periods of time that I can’t help thinking maybe they’re just lonely and in need of someone to talk to, or even talk at. Or maybe I’m just lucky I haven’t been kidnapped yet.

In my own insufficient way, I guess I sympathize with these people. It’s quite condescending, really, to claim that I feel for them when I’ve had no real experience of poverty myself. But what I do understand is that these taxi drivers also contend with high LPG prices, have qualms with higher management, and do overtime, because times are hard and that’s how they get by.

Of course, if I had gotten into that accident, I wouldn’t have thought about it that way. I would’ve been too busy arguing with the taxi driver about whose fault it was, and making him pay for the damage he caused the car. It also would’ve justified the demonized perception I have of PUV drivers in Metro Manila.

It never would have occurred to me to see the human face behind the monstrous taxi driver.

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PUBLISHED: Student & Campus Section, Manila Bulletin, 5 November 2008 Issue (Page E-3)

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In my earlier years, All Saints’ Day didn’t strike me as significant by itself. What gave it value, if there was one, was coming to the province to spend time with my cousins and enjoying a change of scenery. But I saw no point in visiting the cemetery. Why should I have to be dragged there to pay my respects to people (granted, they were relatives) whom I had never even met, and quite possibly, had never given a damn about me?

I couldn’t find a satisfactory answer, but I continued to come along on these visits anyway, if only to observe tradition.

Then when I was nine, my first pet, a poodle named Tanny, died. Her death caused me so much sorrow that I refused to have her buried. Burying her would mean that I would never see her or hold her again. We eventually had to, though. So it was that the days for the dead came to hold its first real significance for me: it was a time to offer a prayer or a moment of silence in honor of my beloved Tanny.

In the years that would follow, I would be provided with more reasons to commemorate it: a pair of rabbits and lovebirds; my grandmother, who endured two years of recurring strokes and heart attacks; my dear grandfather, who died while I was abroad. Most recently, there was my other grandmother, who died on All Saints’ Day last weekend.

It is on occasions like these that I wonder whether there is a point to honoring the dead. What good does remembering really do to them? It’s not like they’ll be brought back to life by it. Nor, if we are to talk about heaven and judgment, will it alter the way their lives played out or the choices that they made. Or, if we were to take it from the opposite spectrum of belief: they’re dead anyway, they can’t care. No, I still don’t see how it benefits the dead to be remembered by those still living.

But if that’s true, why do we spend our lives trying to leave some mark, brand, or impact—in other words, a form of remembrance—on other people’s lives? Why are we so obsessed with remembering and being remembered?

I’m no philosopher, but the answer I came up with is this: our individual lives are but one single, infinitesimal speck in the infinitely boundless dimensions of time and the Universe. Thought of in another way, this means that our lives are meaningless and insignificant. If this is the case, then there is no point in living. Like the stars, our lives will burn brightly for an instant, die out in a blaze of glory, and finally disappear, as if we had never existed.

But just because we are hopelessly small does not mean that we have to be resigned to our own insignificance. Our lives may be tiny, negligible dots against the backdrop of the infinite cosmos, but at least we can make a mark on our fellow dots, however small or fleeting that mark might be. This is where remembering takes significance: we indelibly leave our marks on the lives of the people we have touched. Also, we remember so that we, too, can be remembered. It may be a small consolation, but it is a small (and important!) consolation nonetheless.

Honoring the dead might not do much for those who are already dead, but they do much for those who are still living. It is through those who have run the course of life that we learn how to live ours, and through them that we find the heart to keep on running.

Finally, we can also think about it this way: if all human beings have souls, and souls essentially consist of a person’s thoughts and identity, then what is a soul but a collection of all the memories we have gathered during our lives? Memories, then, are the only things we can bring along with us in the next life.

They are also the only things we truly get to keep of loved ones who have just passed away.

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PUBLISHED: Student & Campus Section, Manila Bulletin, 29 October 2008 Issue (Page E-3)

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Halloween is the only time of the year when we can afford to take the notion of death lightly.

This was what I realized after watching my neighbors prepare their spooky decorations, after hearing many of my friends talk about the costumes they plan to wear to parties, and after witnessing the kids trick-or-treating around our village during the annual Halloween celebration which, strangely enough, isn’t usually held on the day itself.

It’s an interesting contradiction of sorts. Sure, when we think Halloween we think of scary apparitions and ghost stories. But we also think of pranks, parties, and pastries. I guess death isn’t as fearsome or painful to think about when we don’t associate it with a sense of loss.

We now associate it with merrymaking and celebration. Halloween is a time to go dress up as your favorite villain or movie-inspired creature and go partying with your friends. It is a time to be lively and to be alive.

But when you think about it, it is also a form of escapism. After all, what is Halloween but a convenient form of recreation to relieve the unpleasantness derived from death?

When we celebrate it, we remove ourselves from the reality that death is often painful, mortifying and incomprehensible. And by turning it into a form that is entertaining, we are able to grasp and cope with it. Perhaps Halloween is also an opiate of the masses.

This is made even more effective by the advent of media and commercialism. After all, our image of Halloween comprises mostly of what the filmmakers and artists in this last century have constructed for us. It has become largely commercialized and tailor-fit to the desires of the market. In this sense, not only have we desensitized ourselves from death’s reality, perhaps we’ve also commodified it.

Hence, it seems to me that whenever we celebrate Halloween, we run the risk of trivializing what it stands for.

’m not saying, though, that we ought not to celebrate it, or that we ought to celebrate it in a particular way. Nor am I saying that it’s bad that we try to associate death with happier things. But I do think that the true spirit of Halloween is lost on most people.

To remember what that is, it might help to go back to what the holiday originally was. In ancient Celtic tradition, it was a festival celebrating the end of harvest season. Since it was also considered the end, or the ‘death’, of the year, the Celts used to believe that the boundary between the living and the deceased would disappear, and spirits could come and be among the living. Thus Halloween, then called Samhain, was a time for the dead to commune with the living and vice versa. It was something that was to be taken very seriously, if in a festive and celebratory manner.

If the eve of Halloween prepared the people of old for the beginning of a new year by marking the end of a cycle, in modern times it prepares us for the morning after. It is, after all, directly followed by All Saints Day and All Souls Day, holidays which commemorate the faithful departed. And the fact that these three holidays are strung together is neither random nor coincidental. These were deliberately situated alongside each other by the Catholic Church.

Since that’s the case, I would like to think that Halloween is a time to remember the importance of honoring our dead and keeping their memory. It doesn’t matter so much if we choose to celebrate it in a particular manner. What matters is that we know what we are celebrating it for.

It is so easy to boil down Halloween to candy apples, jack-o-lanterns, or dressing up as Rihanna from ‘Disturbia’. A large part of what makes Halloween is what media and pop culture has propagated. But what is truly important is to remember that behind the candies, the costumes, and the merrymaking, is the spirit of Halloween.

Halloween is there to celebrate the importance of commemorating death—and therefore, the importance of a meaningful life.

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PUBLISHED: Student & Campus Section, Manila Bulletin, 22 October 2008 Issue (Page F-2)

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I’ve always been genuinely interested in learning about the relationships that my peers have with their parents. Sometimes I wonder if my friends find me weird for asking about them: family background, characteristics, degree of closeness, and the like. It’s certainly not a topic my peers would normally bring up. After all, there are lots of other things to talk about, like music and sports and who they’re dating.

Some don’t find it difficult to talk about their parents at all. This usually means that they either share a really good relationship with them, or it’s so bad that they just have to talk about it. Others prefer not to share. Still, others talk about them in a superficial way, giving answers that lead to dead-ends in the conversation. In any case, hearing, or even not hearing, about them is always interesting.

Maybe it’s because the relationship you have with your parents tells something about the kind of person you are—regardless of other outside influences that might exist.

Some people end up remarkably similar to their own fathers and mothers. If you look at me and my father, for example, you could make a couple of observations. We’re both left-handed, we both like our coffee black, and we dress up in almost exactly the same way—that is to say, with almost blatant disregard for common fashion sense. We also think the same way, to the point that we ponder things in the exact same position (someone once took a picture. It’s true.) Also, I find that my fun, boisterous, heavy drinker friends, more often than not, have fun, boisterous, heavy drinker fathers or mothers. I find it very amusing.

On the other hand, other similarities can be a lot more subtle, and not quite as amusing. People talk about how they don’t want to end up being like their moms and dads, yet end up becoming exactly like them. I have a couple of rebellious friends who have some insanely strict parents, who in turn were rebellious in their own time as well. I hope it’s not an indicator of what kind of parents my friends will wind up becoming.

Sometimes the influences are tragic. One of my good friends once noted the behavior of her womanizing uncle, saying that maybe the reason why her uncle is such a womanizer is because he never had a mother figure, so he started looking for affection in other places. Maybe she’s right.

It would be wrong for me to generalize all forms of parental influence as bad. Just because your parents complain that you’re going out too much this sembreak does not mean that their advice isn’t sound, or that they’re raising you the wrong way. Besides, who am I to speak about parenting?

But I guess parents should take time once in a while to think about the kind of kids they are raising—or leaving behind, as the case may be. Sometimes we might be a little bit hard to understand, but it might help to look at it in our point of view once in a while. After all, parents were children—and hormonal teenagers—too, once upon a time. And hormonal teenagers don’t often take lightly to moralistic sermons.

On the other hand, I think we have to meet them halfway. The reason parents can sound so moralistic is because they do have some wisdom to impart. They have experience. If we can respect and listen to our teachers, then I think we can do the same for our parents. It’s a matter of balancing between the extremes of youth and experience, I guess.

In the end, I’d like to think that as people with independent minds, we have the greatest capability for forming ourselves, quite apart from outside influences. But if our parents’ influences are inescapable, then they have a pretty huge responsibility, because they might be dictating the way our lives play out without even knowing it.

It’s the same responsibility we’ll have when we become parents.

Oh no.

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PUBLISHED: Student & Campus Section, Manila Bulletin, 15 October 2008 Issue (Page F-4)

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Is anyone beyond pardon?

In answering that question, perhaps the case of Claudio Teehankee, Jr. would be a good place to start. Should he be pardoned? He’s rich and influential; no less than the son of one of the great chief justices in Philippine history. He clearly committed a heinous crime, and he has (purportedly) not shown any signs of remorse. He is, in short, the perfect example of a person whom you shouldn’t pardon.

There are other issues as well. Many have complained that the process was not transparent. Some individuals have even claimed that money changed hands in this case. The victim’s family declared that they were not informed. It seems glaringly evident to everyone that this is not just a case of a lapse in judgment—this was a deliberate act of political indiscretion.

In fact, no matter what way you look at it, this can’t be anything but political. Our very own Justice Secretary did admit that Teehankee’s brother, ambassador and representative to the WTO, ended up being a factor in the decision. Considering how even impeached Presidents get pardoned nowadays, I guess the issue is not just about one deliberate act of political indiscretion, but rather, a whole system founded on it.

Also, we shouldn’t forget about the victims’ families. If there is anyone against whom this crime has been committed, it is to them, who are in themselves victims, first and foremost. Why should they—or we—forgive him? Some things that have been taken away can never be returned. If it were our friend, our parent, our brother or sister, whose life had been taken on a whim, would we not feel the same way? We don’t have to undergo their experiences to be able to grasp they are experiencing. Forgiveness does not come easily for wounds that will never heal.

If so, then is every other pardon just as objectionable?

A decade ago, a lot of controversy surrounded the case of Flor Contemplacion, who purportedly murdered a fellow OFW as well as the son of their Singaporean employer. We claimed that she was framed, that she was innocent. We demanded that she be pardoned. Our then-president went so far as to personally appeal her execution sentence. It was denied. Her execution strained our country’s relations with Singapore for some time. Even if the facts of the case were never fully established to us, our then-president went so far as to call her a hero.

But in contrast to Teehankee, Flor Contemplacion was a poor Filipina forced into an abusive working condition. If so, then is pardon simply a question of race or social class?

Say a poor, oppressed farmer murdered his usurious landlord, who happened to be a wealthy and corrupt politician. Assuming he did his country a favor, does that make his murder any less objectionable? Would you call him a hero? Would you think twice about saying that he deserves pardon?

Maybe it would help us answer the question if we turned our assumptions around for a minute. Let’s say that pardon is acceptable and justifiable under certain circumstances. If our administration can do it, and regularly, for the rich and influential, then it is fair to say that the same standard should be applied for those who are poorer.

But assuming there was a case parallel to Teehankee’s, where the murderer a poor drunkard, the victims in question from the slums and the scene of the crime was in an obscure street alley rather than a high-class subdivision. Would that man have a right to be pardoned, too? Would there be an outcry if our president pardoned him?

In the end, however, the question of pardon is about morality, more so than about politics, race, or social class. It extends to our conscience as individuals who live in a state which respects rights, including the benefit of the doubt.

But if we were to talk about morality, then it goes back to the question: Is anyone beyond forgiveness?

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PUBLISHED: Student & Campus Section, Manila Bulletin, 8 October 2008 Issue (Page E-3)

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It seems to me like the only issue hitting the global headlines these past few weeks is the financial crisis that the US is currently facing. It strikes me as funny in a scary sort of way. It’s funny because I don’t recall any other instance in recent history of our world leaders coming together to agree that
a) There is a problem, and
b) We all have to do our part to solve it.

I guess money talks in a way that global warming doesn’t.

Nonetheless, it is an issue that everyone should rightfully be worried about. This crisis has drawn comparisons to no less than the Great Depression, and the world’s leading economists figure that things won’t be getting better anytime soon.

While our president tells us that there’s nothing to worry about because we have ‘fundamentally sound economics’ (whatever that means), it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if the US slows down, then so do we. They’re easily our biggest trading partner, not to mention that our currency is tied to theirs.

It is precisely this dependence on the United States—and not just by our country—which makes the measures they will take a very big deal. There are mixed reactions to the $700 billion bailout that was approved-shortly-after-it-was-rejected, but the international community generally sees it as a good move. After all, if the US government doesn’t bail these big companies out, then the rest of the world is in for a very painful crash. It’s their responsibility to clean up the mess they’ve made, isn’t it?

If this were true, then I wish we could say the same for the companies we’re bailing out, because it’s not their money that they’ve misused, its other people’s. And it’s these ‘other people’ they’re relying on to bail them out again.

I think this is the height of injustice.

In the first place, a large part of what made this crisis possible is the fact that these investment banks and mortgage-brokers kept on taking questionable loans, in the illusion that profits would continue to expand unstoppably (which sounds an awful lot like history repeating itself).

Simply speaking, they kept on lending money to people who couldn’t necessarily pay them back, so that when times got hard and people started defaulting on their loans, these companies were left with a lot of compensating to do. They compensated using the money that other people entrusted them with, and that’s how they became bankrupt.

Practically speaking, this means that money invested in these companies is lost. Pensioners cannot look forward to a stable retirement. Jobs will continue to vanish. Incomes will also disappear, and in our case, this might mean OFW remittances. Investors will be more afraid to invest, and as they grow more averse to risk, losses will occur in the stock market.

Most importantly, whichever way the world economy goes, it is our generation who will be facing the brunt of its effects.

In the end, however, these companies and the people who run them are very lucky people. They stand to lose but a few luxuries: one of their many houses, probably a yacht.

On the other hand, the rest of us are going to have to buckle up, because our money is going into saving their businesses. What do we stand to lose? A life’s worth of savings, a stable retirement, maybe a house you haven’t fully paid for—what could easily be a life, so to speak. This, apparently, is our reward for putting our trust with them.

If you don’t think that’s the height of oppression, think about this: we’re bailing out these companies because we have to. They’re simply too important to be allowed to fail; their collapse will deal a huge blow to the world’s financial system, which could easily mean another, Greater Depression. And after we bail them out, we’ll still be subject to the same system.

The old saying goes that you should never bite the hand that feeds. In this case, it’s also that we can’t. But if there’s any consolation, it’s the fact that the big people now have to put their money where their mouth is.

Oh, but wait—they don’t have it anymore.

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PUBLISHED: Student & Campus Section, Manila Bulletin, 1 October 2008 Issue (Page E-3)

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I’ve been looking forward to the Obama-McCain debate for quite some time now, but I must say that after watching CNN’s coverage of it last Saturday, I was rather disappointed.

I expected someone to take the lead in this campaign, but no one did. More emphasis was seemingly put on antagonizing the other candidate’s stances than on a fruitful discussion about policies. In particular, the debate became very intense when it came to the issue of Iraq and the Middle East. Obama continued to depict McCain as a supporter of the Bush administration; McCain continued to paint Obama as an inexperienced candidate. Afterwards, both campaigns released statements saying that their candidate had won. I don’t know who to believe.

Nonetheless, if there’s anything I admire about the political culture of the United States, it’s the fact that citizens continue to value these kinds of exchanges. Debates are an excellent avenue for presenting platforms and comparing policies. As far as government goes, these are the most important things we need to look out for when we elect a country’s leaders.

Funnily enough, while we’ve based much of our own system of government on theirs, this tradition of discussing platforms and policies through an intellectual clash is something that we’ve never inherited.

In our country, not much value is placed on the practice of debate in elections. Instead, our political culture (if it exists) is obsessed with pandering to images– and images only.

In the Philippines, the practice of elections approximates American Idol: it is mostly a battle of personalities. It explains why campaign jingles work, why actors win, and why few candidates seems to pay attention to making a real platform– which might also account for why there are no political parties here in the real sense of the word. We might as well turn elections into a reality show.

Then again, it’s not like there’s much we can do about that. If it’s true that history repeats itself, then this phenomenon of voting for the most handsome candidate is merely a repetition of how we used to select our datus based on who seems most charismatic. It’s all just a cycle that will continue to recur, and there is nothing we can do to change it.

Also, the idea of making Juan de la Cruz listen to some boring debate about whether candidates support the E-VAT is not quite as convincing as, say, the monetary ‘handouts’ that politicians would give to voters. The harsh realities of politics in the Philippines will continue to be there, and they will be much stronger forces than the force of reason.

It’s not like they’ll take these ideas seriously, anyway. Their ideas will not matter if they don’t put them into action. And it’s hard to put faith in a system that has promised us so many big things before, but have continued to fail us today.

But maybe that’s the problem. Since when did ‘progress’ or ‘poverty elimination’ become platforms? Why does no one ever talk about concrete measures, like the reform of relief programs, the passing of laws, or the repealing of policies? Allow me to be crazy and say that the reason why we there is no hope is because we’re not given something real to believe in.

I believe that there is a value in re-engineering the way we think and go about elections. I believe that more emphasis should be placed on the platforms and ideas put forth by candidates, instead of selecting leaders based on, literally, face value. I believe that there is room for the growth of a real political culture in the Philippines, that this will eventually ensure that we select the appropriate people for office. I believe that while there are many obstacles along the way, it is not yet too late to start. It took four centuries for the United States to get to where they are, and I think we have the capacity to do the same.

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PUBLISHED: Student & Campus Section, Manila Bulletin, 24 September 2008 Issue (Page E-3)

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Last Sunday, while everyone was out watching the Ateneo-La Salle game in Araneta, I was over at a blockmate’s house with a couple of friends doing some academic work. This, however, did not change the fact that by four in the afternoon, all of us were seated around the big-screen TV, watching the game intently, sharing its highs and lows with all the other fans in the Big Dome. We had ceased being productive.

The game was a bit of a mess. The game was excruciatingly slow in the first half, and there were too many fouls and turnovers throughout. About the only thing that was amazing in this game was the defense, and even if you’re a fan of the sport, this is usually quite hard to appreciate.

But the game wasn’t completely devoid of good points. One of these good points was Ateneo’s 6”7 center Rabeh Al-Hussaini, who had 31 of Ateneo’s 69 points to go along with 9 rebounds. The MVP candidate’s play showed why Ateneo has been on top all season.

During the post-game analysis, my blockmates and I were talking about him in particular. “Ano bang height niyan?” one of them asked. “six-foot-seven,” another of my blockmates answered. “Mga kasing-height ni Michael Jordan.”

That remark, I think, illustrates why the Philippines and basketball don’t fit each other very well.

In our country, basketball is something of a national fixation. We play it on the streets, buy the jerseys, and have an entire channel dedicated to it on cable. This obsession tends to be both utilized and fueled by media. For example, basketball players are treated as celebrities, performing various other functions ranging from TV host to commercial model. When you think about it, these people aren’t just selling products or TV shows. In effect, they are also selling basketball, being “ambassadors of the game”. Maybe this is why every teenage boy, at some point in his life, must have wanted to be a basketball superstar.

While I myself also subscribe to the basketball culture, I don’t understand how things came to be this way, or indeed, why they should be.

For one thing, we put in so much money and effort into basketball when it’s something we can’t be competitive at internationally. Height, of course, is the big issue here. In other countries, the height range for big men would be around six-foot-ten to over seven feet. For smaller players like guards, the average height would be at around six-foot-four to six-foot-seven. Here, Rabeh Al-Hussaini, who stands six-foot-seven inches tall, is already a big man. Our big men are about as big as the small guards of other countries.

For another thing, we pay so much attention to basketball that we’ve come to ignore other sports. In this country, there’s not much room for a career in a sport that’s not basketball, aside from billiards, boxing, and bowling. Besides being unfair to all our talented and dedicated swimmers, martial artists, and other “–ball” players, it also makes you wonder if we have a strange, irrational preference for sports starting with the letter ‘B’.

That aside, I think the worse effect is that some of the sports we’re ignoring, we can actually be competitive at internationally, if we aren’t already. It seems to me that we pay much more attention to how our basketball teams fare in the UAAP than we do about our Olympic bets in taekwondo or archery. While it might be true that we’d give them support when they finally win, let’s face it: any endeavor that aims to win at international sporting leagues requires state support, in terms of both of funding and fan base. Basketball has a lot of this, while our other sports don’t appear to have much, if at all.

Perhaps the funniest thing about all of what I’ve mentioned above is that these aren’t things we haven’t heard before. Despite this, though, we continue to hold on to basketball as our national sport, for better or worse.

But I guess you could also look at it this way: if a sport is just as much about enjoyment as it is about competition, then the fact that we enjoy basketball is what matters.

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PUBLISHED: Student & Campus Section, Manila Bulletin, 17 September 2008 Issue (Page F-4)

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A lot of us enter college dreaming of big things for ourselves.

During the first few weeks of school, it was not uncommon to hear people say that they’re going to average an uno or a quatro (whichever applies), or at least make the Dean’s List, this first semester. I guess there’s just something about the whole situation that makes us believe that we’re up to the challenges it poses. But maybe that’s a good thing, if it motivates us to give it our best.

Now that we’re nearing the end, though, the mood is strikingly different. A lot of my peers have given up on the possibility of an academically flawless first semester, or on making the Dean’s List, for that matter. I guess there’s just something about the whole situation that puts us in our place. Whatever the reason, the fact is that we don’t get the grades that we expected.

But the good thing about the college system is that your grade isn’t the only thing that matters. This, I presume, is the reason why the upperclassmen keep saying that you should be active in orgs, because orgs will give you the experience as well as the opportunities when you start out. They often tell stories of people who didn’t necessarily graduate with honors, but were very much involved in org work, which is why they’re doing okay right now.

Besides, as one of my professors put very eloquently, college is really all about the lessons you learn and the skills you pick up, which aren’t necessarily reflected by your grades. Grades measure your output, but they do not always truly measure the kind of person you are, or the amount of knowledge you have gained.

At this point, there is a lot of consolation about not doing very well academically in college. After all, grades aren’t everything. We shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves for not getting the marks we want to get. Instead, we should just enjoy learning for learning’s sake.

I agree—except it’s really not that simple.

For one thing, it’s still one of the first things that potential employers look at when they view your resume. This, actually, has some logical basis: grades are the most objective measures of your ability to produce output. In a way, therefore, they are a reliable measure of your work ethic. True, grades don’t always reflect your true mettle, but your true mettle won’t be worth anything if it can’t earn you a decent living.

Second, first-class grades are pretty much a prerequisite to getting first-class opportunities, and by that I mean you have to be one of the very best, if not the very best. After all, these opportunities go a very long way; you could be starting at a position which most other people would take years to even reach. If you think about it in terms of the money you earn or the time you save, that is quite a significant advantage. It is an advantage that org involvement won’t often be able to give you.

It is at this point that you realize how much a semester really matters. Education is a game of grade-point averages, and college is no different; the only thing that matters is your average at the end. Therefore, the goal is to keep your GPA consistently high. If you spread that out over the whole course of your college life, which is around eight semesters for most people, you’ll realize that one or two near-failing marks in one semester can easily destroy your bid for summa cum laude, and that semester is something you can never get back.

That is precisely why first semester can be so frustrating. If you slipped up, then you’ll just have to live with it. Also, it doesn’t get any easier from here. If you weren’t able to exploit it, then you’ll just have to work harder the rest of the way—all for a piece of paper that supposedly estimates your worth in the job market.

Maybe it’s unfair, but the fact of the matter is this:

Grades do matter.

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PUBLISHED: Student & Campus Section, Manila Bulletin, 10 September 2008 Issue (Page E-4)

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As a young adolescent, my father loved talking about his experiences as a young activist. That was back in the late ‘70s, when life was characterized by Cold War-like tension under the Marcos administration, and threats seemed more visible and real, even for young people.

Nonetheless, activism had an appeal to the youth then. And my father was one of those people who would be at the forefront of rallies, as well as behind organizing them. Eventually, he would be one of the millions of people who flocked to EDSA and proved to the world that oppressive regimes could be brought down by bloodless revolutions. Obviously, he’s proud to be part of that movement.

Conversations like these, though, would inevitably come to a comparison with our generation. My father would say that activism was not what it used to be, when the youth truly felt like they had a stake in their country’s future. He would also say that the youth of today is a lot more apathetic and indifferent.

Firstly, I think he’s right in saying that activism is not what it used to be. Then again, he lived in a generation when fears were much more palpable. You always felt like you were being watched, and you never knew what could happen to you. One day, you could be in school, and the next day, you would never be heard from again; nowadays, it’s not like that. Or, at the very least, you wouldn’t expect that to come from non-criminal elements.

Besides, back in the day they had an incentive to be disruptive. For one thing, most people supported it, whether openly or not. For another thing, they used to send stronger messages. Now, they don’t seem to work. Moreover, sometimes they are just annoying.

Secondly, in my opinion there’s some merit to the accusation that we’ve become more apathetic. Things have changed, yes; but besides that, I think our generation has become more detached from reality. The advent of the information age has ironically made it easier for us to lock ourselves in our own little worlds. We are now able to block out the sounds of the world around us with the sounds that come from our iPods.

In my own experience, the sad truth is that I know too many people who just don’t give a damn. For some, the sad state of affairs is simply not a reality that can be felt, whether literally or figuratively, in their lives. Others are aware of what’s happening, but would rather not care. What’s the point in caring, anyway? It’s either that, or there’s also no point behind their not caring. Ours, after all, is also a “wala lang” generation.

But it would be wrong to say that we’re completely indifferent. Activism is often equated with protests and demonstrations, particularly in this country, where “militant” takes on the special meaning of “one who engages in rallies”. Yet activism also takes a number of different forms, such as advocacy campaigns. If that’s the case, then the ranks of the young activists in this country would increase. It might be by a small amount, but I guess it’s better than nothing.

If we are going to insist on traditional notions of activism, though, can you blame us for not being involved in political change? Our generation bore witness to the other People Power, but things didn’t turn out the way our people had hoped they would. We’ve also borne witness to the massive protests that have followed, and none of them have succeeded. As a generation, we’ve learned—via experience, in fact—that these methods don’t work anymore. Or that if they do, they don’t necessarily make things better.

That’s funny, though. It’s either we don’t care, or we’re disillusioned this early. All the while, things seem to be getting worse, and it’s either we don’t feel it, or we don’t feel anything can be done about it.

In the final analysis, maybe we are an apathetic generation.

But as long as there are people who continue struggling to make things better, no matter how few, I refuse to believe that there is no hope.