Ada
Apr 19, 2000, 05:42 PM
A friend of mine wrote this and I want to share it with all of you.
--
My fellow graduates:
Let me begin by posing this rather simple question to you: Why must our class celebrate our graduation from college? To this, there can be only one answer: It is because our class is special.
What makes our graduating class so different from the rest that we should be so special? Nothing. Nothing at all. We're not unique. We're not one of a kind. We're the normal regular, everyday, every schoolyear kind of a class. We've had the same teachers as all the rest, fascinating and otherwise. We've had the same lessons as all the rest, enriching and otherwise. we've had the same experiences as all the rest, exciting and otherwise. We won some and lost some, but so did everyone else. We were self-proclaimed rebels without causes. We came to school with improper uniforms. We smoked during the breaks. We ate snacks when the teacher wasn't looking. We played games when the lessons were boring and, when the matter got heavy enough, we slept. But so did everyone else. There were times when we were good too. We'd work hard and work together. We'd help each other out. Sometimes we'd even help the teachers. And once, there may have been more but I only remember it happening once, we listened in class. But so did everyone else. So what's so special about something that was already done over and over... and over again in the past? Everyone did it before. Now we've done it too. And that's what makes us special.
That's what makes us special. Everything that was said, heard, felt, experienced, learned (and not learned)... everything that was done was done by us. We did it, not anyone else. There were our victories: the first places, the perfect tests and the honors. There were our defeats: the second and third places, the zero tests and the flunking grades. The wins and the losses, the joys and the sorrows, the laughter and the tears; all of it was ours. That's what makes us special.
And now it's all over. Finished. We have endured the pain, sufferings and hardships of four (or five) years in college. And we have triumphed. But we have not yet reached the proverbial top of the hill. And so we must still go on. We have more challenges to face and mountains to conquer. Our classroom is someone else's now. We are leaving -- leaving our room, our class, and perhaps some friends. And what of everything that has happened these past few years? What of everything that has become a part of us? Are they to be left behind? Will all these moments be lost in time like tears in the rain? They don't have to be. They shouldn't be. And they won't be. Because our class is special. And because we care.
The year 2025 seems so far away at the moment. But it is a year quite important to our class. For in that year, we will meet again for our Silver Jubilee Celebration. It will be an affair to relish fond memories of years spent in college. It will also be an occasion however, to review how we, individually and collectively, fared in our
lives.
By what standard of success will we be measured then?
When some of us think of a successful man, what is our image of him? Many picture him as a rich man who lives in a marble-tiled house in an exclusive village, who wears imported shoes and clothes and is driven in his air-conditioned car to his carpeted office in a high-rise building in Makati. Because he is rich, he is powerful, or perhaps it is the other way around.
I do not wish to be misunderstood. There is nothing wrong with political success. There is nothing intrinsically evil with wealth or power. Any man who says he does not want to be rich or powerful is either a liar or a fool. But surely the must be other standards or measures of success. Surely too, men should be able to fulfill other functions and achieve other ambitions and their success in their chosen fields of endeavor can be truly authentic, worthy of our honor and respect.
I am thinking for example, of a Filipino newspaperman who died penniless in a foreign land and was buried in a pauper's grave. Was he a success or a failure? His name was Marcelo H. del Pilar.
I am thinking of that stubborn paralytic, Apolinario Mabini, who died of cholera in a nipa hut along the Pasig River. Was he a success or a failure?
I am thinking of Evelio Javier, shot in cold blood inside the toilet of a sari-sari store in a third class municipality of an underdeveloped province. Was he a success or a failure?
The truth, my dear graduates, is that the standard of success by which we shall be measured will not be how much we have earned in our lifetime but on how we have lived those lives. Will we be men who will bend our energies, not to strengthen our position of privilege, but to the extent possible, use our privilege for the underprivileged? Will we be men who will become agents of change in our society, not merely resisting the unjust structures but actively undertaking to transform them? Will we be men who will be able to discern, through he poverty and disorder around us, not to despair but to struggle for hope, and dream for a just and compassionate society worthy of our lives?
That sounds tough, doesn't it? Yet, we do not have to look far back for an example, for in the recent history of our country, one man made the supreme sacrifice of his life. We bore witness to Ninoy Aquino's martyrdom which brought forth the EDSA Revolution that restored democracy in our country. It is the men who have lived their lives in the service of others who will be remembered more than those who have amassed wealth and acquired power.
After all, who among you now can tell me the name of the president of India when Mother Teresa started her charitable work in the slums of Calcutta? Does anyone remember who was the King of Belgium when Albert Schweitzer did his medical mission deep in the jungles of the Belgian Congo? Can anyone tell me who was the Governor of Hawaii when Father Damien lived, worked and died with the lepers in Molokai?
My thoughts go back to the Ateneo High School Class of 1877. Of the twelve members of the graduating class, one was a 15-year old young man who graduated Sobresaliente. His name in the graduation program was listed as Don Jose Rizal Mercado. Do you sometimes ever wonder whatever became of his eleven other classmates? Well, they became successful professionals and merchants --- all honorable men in their communities. As for him, he became a novelist who had to publish his own books, an ophthalmologist who practiced in a rural village in Mindanao, an advocate of lost causes who was shot in the back as a traitor. Yet, they, his classmates, are now forgotten while he lives in the memory of his people.
To each of you my dear graduates, I leave two questions: First, will you live a life that will be forgotten or will you live a life that will live in the memory of your people?
And to bring this talk to a close, I ask you my last question: Will your school, in the year 2025, celebrate with joy the success of its class of 2000? That is a question to which only you have the reply.
--
My fellow graduates:
Let me begin by posing this rather simple question to you: Why must our class celebrate our graduation from college? To this, there can be only one answer: It is because our class is special.
What makes our graduating class so different from the rest that we should be so special? Nothing. Nothing at all. We're not unique. We're not one of a kind. We're the normal regular, everyday, every schoolyear kind of a class. We've had the same teachers as all the rest, fascinating and otherwise. We've had the same lessons as all the rest, enriching and otherwise. we've had the same experiences as all the rest, exciting and otherwise. We won some and lost some, but so did everyone else. We were self-proclaimed rebels without causes. We came to school with improper uniforms. We smoked during the breaks. We ate snacks when the teacher wasn't looking. We played games when the lessons were boring and, when the matter got heavy enough, we slept. But so did everyone else. There were times when we were good too. We'd work hard and work together. We'd help each other out. Sometimes we'd even help the teachers. And once, there may have been more but I only remember it happening once, we listened in class. But so did everyone else. So what's so special about something that was already done over and over... and over again in the past? Everyone did it before. Now we've done it too. And that's what makes us special.
That's what makes us special. Everything that was said, heard, felt, experienced, learned (and not learned)... everything that was done was done by us. We did it, not anyone else. There were our victories: the first places, the perfect tests and the honors. There were our defeats: the second and third places, the zero tests and the flunking grades. The wins and the losses, the joys and the sorrows, the laughter and the tears; all of it was ours. That's what makes us special.
And now it's all over. Finished. We have endured the pain, sufferings and hardships of four (or five) years in college. And we have triumphed. But we have not yet reached the proverbial top of the hill. And so we must still go on. We have more challenges to face and mountains to conquer. Our classroom is someone else's now. We are leaving -- leaving our room, our class, and perhaps some friends. And what of everything that has happened these past few years? What of everything that has become a part of us? Are they to be left behind? Will all these moments be lost in time like tears in the rain? They don't have to be. They shouldn't be. And they won't be. Because our class is special. And because we care.
The year 2025 seems so far away at the moment. But it is a year quite important to our class. For in that year, we will meet again for our Silver Jubilee Celebration. It will be an affair to relish fond memories of years spent in college. It will also be an occasion however, to review how we, individually and collectively, fared in our
lives.
By what standard of success will we be measured then?
When some of us think of a successful man, what is our image of him? Many picture him as a rich man who lives in a marble-tiled house in an exclusive village, who wears imported shoes and clothes and is driven in his air-conditioned car to his carpeted office in a high-rise building in Makati. Because he is rich, he is powerful, or perhaps it is the other way around.
I do not wish to be misunderstood. There is nothing wrong with political success. There is nothing intrinsically evil with wealth or power. Any man who says he does not want to be rich or powerful is either a liar or a fool. But surely the must be other standards or measures of success. Surely too, men should be able to fulfill other functions and achieve other ambitions and their success in their chosen fields of endeavor can be truly authentic, worthy of our honor and respect.
I am thinking for example, of a Filipino newspaperman who died penniless in a foreign land and was buried in a pauper's grave. Was he a success or a failure? His name was Marcelo H. del Pilar.
I am thinking of that stubborn paralytic, Apolinario Mabini, who died of cholera in a nipa hut along the Pasig River. Was he a success or a failure?
I am thinking of Evelio Javier, shot in cold blood inside the toilet of a sari-sari store in a third class municipality of an underdeveloped province. Was he a success or a failure?
The truth, my dear graduates, is that the standard of success by which we shall be measured will not be how much we have earned in our lifetime but on how we have lived those lives. Will we be men who will bend our energies, not to strengthen our position of privilege, but to the extent possible, use our privilege for the underprivileged? Will we be men who will become agents of change in our society, not merely resisting the unjust structures but actively undertaking to transform them? Will we be men who will be able to discern, through he poverty and disorder around us, not to despair but to struggle for hope, and dream for a just and compassionate society worthy of our lives?
That sounds tough, doesn't it? Yet, we do not have to look far back for an example, for in the recent history of our country, one man made the supreme sacrifice of his life. We bore witness to Ninoy Aquino's martyrdom which brought forth the EDSA Revolution that restored democracy in our country. It is the men who have lived their lives in the service of others who will be remembered more than those who have amassed wealth and acquired power.
After all, who among you now can tell me the name of the president of India when Mother Teresa started her charitable work in the slums of Calcutta? Does anyone remember who was the King of Belgium when Albert Schweitzer did his medical mission deep in the jungles of the Belgian Congo? Can anyone tell me who was the Governor of Hawaii when Father Damien lived, worked and died with the lepers in Molokai?
My thoughts go back to the Ateneo High School Class of 1877. Of the twelve members of the graduating class, one was a 15-year old young man who graduated Sobresaliente. His name in the graduation program was listed as Don Jose Rizal Mercado. Do you sometimes ever wonder whatever became of his eleven other classmates? Well, they became successful professionals and merchants --- all honorable men in their communities. As for him, he became a novelist who had to publish his own books, an ophthalmologist who practiced in a rural village in Mindanao, an advocate of lost causes who was shot in the back as a traitor. Yet, they, his classmates, are now forgotten while he lives in the memory of his people.
To each of you my dear graduates, I leave two questions: First, will you live a life that will be forgotten or will you live a life that will live in the memory of your people?
And to bring this talk to a close, I ask you my last question: Will your school, in the year 2025, celebrate with joy the success of its class of 2000? That is a question to which only you have the reply.