Published in Cebu Gold Star Daily
In memory of Justice Edgardo F. Sundiam, a professor who taught me about the legal profession.
This is a shortened version of an essay I wrote for his class back in my first semester of law school, year 2003.
May he rest in true peace.
The Law of Hope
One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds.
- MOHAMDAS ‘MAHATMA’ GANDHI (Martyr, Patriot, Lawyer)
I have spent 71 days in the law school. I have studied for approximately 300 hours at my own desk at home. I have read approximately 7000 pages of text from law books and case assignments. And yet I am nothing.
“The law school is not for the faint of heart”. Those were the words I heard from a friend who just passed the bar a couple of years ago. This phrase rang in my mind in each step I took towards my first class. Every fear, every apprehension, every doubt attacked me at that moment, drowning all the noise and every other sensation that surrounded me. The only prayer in my heart was that I would make it through the day with my spirit still intact. That was 9 weeks ago. From that moment until today, I have traversed into the wisdom and greatness of the law as well as its duplicity and insidiousness. Not for the faint of heart, indeed.
I never had a reason for entering law school worth mentioning. For one thing, I couldn’t find a satisfying job after college. My parents kept pressuring me to enter medical school but it was just too far from my own desires. I live in my brother’s apartment and have not contributed a single cent for the bills or for the rent. In short, I had nothing else to do with my life and time was running out fast. As lame as it sounds, that is my truth. I do not even have a good reason why I applied for law school in the first place. At that time, it was just a way for me to get my parents off my back. I was working in a religious organization and got paid just enough to settle my mobile phone bills. I was a true cliché… a highly educated, jobless Filipino with a dying sense of self-esteem. I had no idea what law school was all about. I couldn’t have cared less. To me, lawyers were just thieves in suits. I never wanted to be anyone who, even remotely, fits that description. I had my pride… and little did I know that with it, I carried my prejudice.
For the past 2 months, I have listened to professors and students talk about the law. But what I found to be more noteworthy is what they think of the law as a way of life. I have heard of people talk about it as, merely, a business. Some talk about it as a vocation of nobility and honor. And some even consider it as “the new priesthood”. From all these, I realized that the profession of law is not characterized by the practice itself, but one’s reason for practicing it. The title “lawyer” is not conclusive of what a person is. It merely speaks of what he does. Just like any other person practicing any other profession, that person is not only what he does but also what he believes in. A lawyer can be a mercenary, a patriot, a thief, a saint, a master, a servant, a prophet, a criminal… he can be anything. Before law school, I did not know this. I made my judgment without trial. I was unjust in forming my own conclusions.
My decision to enter the law school came about the day before the enrollment. Even then, my doubts were overpowering me. I had to ask counsel from a priest, several relatives, and a whole lot of friends. Every single one of them said the same thing: “Go for it! You will make a great lawyer”. The problem was that I never even understood what it meant to be a “lawyer”. Nevertheless, I trusted their wisdom and I took the plunge. Little did I know that I had just made one of the best decisions of my life, and it was not even completely mine.
I found myself in the law. The words justice, counsel, and compassion keep ringing in my head. I never expected to find these words on the very text of the law itself. I never really examined, much less, understood the law this clearly before. My indifference has deprived me of something so great and yet so real. The Preamble of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines speaks unequivocally that, inter alia, the People of the Philippines live under a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace… Six great virtues that exist or ought to exist in this great country of ours. I have found in the law what I have been looking for, for a long time: Hope.
What have I learned so far? That I am nothing. I am an idea that is yet to be realized. What I do now and what I will be doing for the next 4 years of my life in the law school will make me into something real -- someone who will stand a chance against adversity -- someone who will be able to push reality a little closer to his ideals. With all my fellow law students, those who came before us, and those who will come after us, all we have is hope. We all study the same books, the same laws, and the same ideas… but in the end, what we will become is not what we have been taught but what we choose to believe in and hope for. None of these titles like judge, politician, businessman, prosecutor, or counselor will ever matter. It will never be about what we are capable of doing… It will be about why we do them.
What motives do I have? To serve God and share his mandate of love to all people? To defend those who are too weak to defend themselves? To fight for what is just and right? To bring order into this chaotic world? To break down walls and create bridges for all men and women? Yes, all these and more. But these only are ideals that we have to incarnate into this world through painfully hard work against seemingly insurmountable odds. Yes, it will be difficult. Certainly, giving up would always be a welcome option. But all I ask… all I demand from myself, is that I would leave this world a better place that it was when I entered it… then I would have done my part.
The evils of man can be created with so little effort or even by accident… but goodness can only come from determination and conviction.
Why do I want to be a lawyer?
Because I have hope.
Originally published in Cebu Gold Star Daily, Vol. 1, No. 107, p. 6 (January 26, 2009, Monday)
Last night, I reviewed the Obama-Biden inauguration and I could not help but feel genuinely moved by the whole event. Never in modern history has there been this much emotional investment and support for a politician.
A peerless speechwriter and a serious student of history, law and world events, Barack Obama was an easy choice for America and a welcome breath of fresh air for the world. I was never one to care much about politics, but this special person just draws you in by his words and his stories. He carries that optimism and idealism many of us tend to abandon, as we grow older. His attitude is very much like that of a child’s, believing that determined people can make real and lasting changes in the world. In a jaded world starved for hope, Barack has come to take his place in history at the most opportune time.
Indeed, words can be cheap. Even pretty ones. President Obama has the monumental task of backing up his entire body of promises and dreams with the difficult decisions he will have to make in the next four years. Nevertheless, words are cheap only if they come from nowhere. In Obama’s case, his life story is as penetrating and impressive as his words. He studied well, traveled well and lived well.
Barack comes from a very odd mix of circumstances. His father was from Kenya, his mother, a white American from Kansas and his stepfather was Indonesian. This taught him early in life about discrimination and how it was like to be ‘a little bit of everything’. As a consequence of these circumstances, he traveled much and experienced much at a very young age. At different points in his life, he lived in Indonesia, Hawaii and the U.S. mainland. Later in life, he would travel extensively to Asia, Europe and Africa, broadening his understanding of the world.
He has solid experience with organizing small communities through NGO’s and church groups. In law school, he became the very first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review. He worked as a civil rights lawyer in a Chicago firm and later taught Constitutional Law in the University of Chicago. From these facts alone, we can see that his personal philosophy and his life are profoundly embedded with the ideals of freedom, peace and equality. Even his later work as a state senator, and later a U.S. senator, consistently displays his commitment to these same ideals.
Looking further back, strange comfort can be found in the fact that Barack isn’t perfect and that he is honest enough to confront his failures publicly. In his book Dreams from My Father, he admitted using drugs and alcohol as escapes from his troubled teenage years, and deeply regrets this as greatest failure. Such honesty is practically unheard of in the political arena, especially during a campaign period. Such admission of weakness and regret are very clear indicators of the kind of strength we all look for in a leader – and with this, we have now have the flawed hero we can sympathize for and look up to.
So why all the fanfare and excitement about a foreign president? Because the United States is in the very best position to take the reins once more and lead the world into a better place. Humanity is inevitably affected by the decisions of the top dogs of the U.S. They have been part of practically every war in the past century and it follows that, if backed up with the proper political will, they have the capacity for genuine peace-building. Many of the jobs and opportunities all over the world emanate from or are coordinated by American business leaders. Their decisions and their leadership will always have a major impact on our islands. Their peace is our peace. Their environmental policy is our policy. Their freedom is our freedom. What they do, what they decide to do and what they accomplish are very much our business too.
From his own life, President Obama has learned that the United States cannot function in isolation. That there are more levels of consequences for his actions than just America. It would be wise to take a page from his book and realize that we are truly becoming one world – and with this, we share one hope: the fulfillment of what he declared as “the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”
I might sound like a naive optimist and romantic idealist, but as the late Mr. Lennon would say, “I’m not the only one.” Godspeed to the new generation of leaders. May they be instrumental in transforming our collective dreams into reality. The time has come for Pax Americana.
Originally published in Cebu Gold Star Daily, Vol. 1, No. 99, p. 6 (January 16, 2009, Friday)
I begin my duties here at Gold Star by explaining what my column is all about. The French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre once taught, “We have no choice but to be free”. It might sound like an oxymoron at first look, but it actually makes good sense. Freedom is not a choice but condition that is placed upon us as rational beings. We are not free to choose or reject our freedom. It is this freedom that capacitates us to navigate through the vast ocean of goods, evils and debatable gray areas in life. To the human person, freedom appears to be like a purely desirable gift, but it is also a tremendous responsibility that we need to guard against our own weaknesses. Free choices range from miniscule events like choosing which coffee beans to grab from the grocery store to colossal steps like whether or not to send young soldiers to fight in a foreign land.
In this short life, we spend most of our time trying to acquire wealth and power. In the right hands, these can be genuine instruments of freedom. Wealth can be used to create industries that provide quality goods and services to the people. This, in turn, creates jobs and livelihood for people who would otherwise have nothing. Power can be used to effect proper change and influence the movers in society to follow a desired path. It can be used to fight for a cleaner environment, better living conditions, greater productivity and a great many goods that can be brought about by a single nudge of power.
On the duller side, power and wealth can be used for purely selfish reasons -- reasons that ignore the human condition and rot the soul. This spiritual cancer is one we see too often in today’s world. Relationships become equated with material gifts and quality of life is mistaken for one’s bank statement. I don’t pretend to imply that enjoying the fine things in life is an evil. I enjoy a good cup of gourmet coffee as much as the next guy. But our patterns of behavior and consumption must be a means to better living rather than an end to itself. We ought to strive for quality over quantity – satisfaction over accumulation.
In a place and time where wealth and opportunities are scarce, we always need to come to terms on a daily basis with the choice of either fending for ourselves or to aiding those in dire situations. We are faced with the challenge of overcoming our baser instincts of survival to live in a higher plane of existence as rational and compassionate human beings. This is the cost of our freedom -- responsibility over our own circles of influence, never cowering from these difficult but necessary decisions. We are free and we have no choice but to be free -- no other choice but to face the chain of consequences that our actions bear. We can choose to add to the suffering or to supply reprieve.
This is our challenge. And it is only right that we grab a chance to review our lives and what we’ve done with our gifts, our wealth and our power. When we use them the way they ought to be used, we create meaning. We transform work into love and power into inspiration. We become people worth imitating – people that others can be proud of.
So this brand new year can be our opportunity to look into the recent past and see how many lives we’ve improved including our own. Did we act as animals or as human being free from our own destructive tendencies? Every day is a chance to be better than who you were yesterday. And that is all we really need to do to be truly free.
Cheers to a wonderful 2009.
NOTHING FOLLOWS
These are the last words you will ever see as a bar examinee... and though you don't think much of it then, you do now... and you can only pray that this is a statement of no consequence -- a non-prophetic lexical blunder that was never intended to articulate your fate.
How do you reconcile a duty with a dream? I'm just figuring this out right now... and it's no fun at all. As much as I hated the academic part of being in law school, sudden post-bar freedom [abandonment] is no fun. Is this life? Pay the bills, then die? Maybe. For some of us, maybe. But I'm still figuring this out.
No vacation for this one. There's just too much to do.
Thank you to everyone who gave their time, mind and muscle to support us during one of our darkest times. The bar exam is no joke. No freakin' way. But we were standing on the top of a giant's head... and this was probably enough to pass those eight tests.
Thank you to the Ateneo Law School BarOps. To my dearest friends in the AHRC, to my fellow bar examinees who served as my primary mutual support group, to my AHRC Batchmates who made their appearances and gestures of support. To my immediate family who was there throughout the whole ordeal, and my extended family who believed in what fortitude I had left to spare. To my bandmates and friends in the music business who gave me their own brand of sick but vital support. For all your prayers, financial and moral support, smiles, text messages, emails, hugs, kisses, taps on the shoulder, jokes, insights, wake-up calls, sleepless nights and all your generous sacrifices, thank you, everybody.
The bar exam is a spiritual and humbling experience. I thank God for it and for everyone who was part of my experience.
I love you all. Forget the damn lawyer's oath... I personally swear to every one of you that I will never abuse this power should I be deemed worthy of it.
See you all in the real world soon.
Originally published in the March 2008 Issue of ThePalladium -- in my column Legal Personality.
As a super-senior, I can't help but reach back into my immediate past to try and draw out a cumulative meaning that will somehow justify this long-overdue end. After years of leafing through thousands of pages of often-incomprehensible text and braving hundreds of hours of humiliation, terror and disappointment, I finally see the finish line in the short distance -- a sight that gets sweeter every day. And just as we were taught always to begin with the end in mind, it's equally important to end reflective of everything that had been.
Roughly a week before I descended into the hell that was Intro to Law, my dad gave me an elegant wooden Ingraham table clock, and on its face was an inscription that read:
One Day at a Time
Help me believe in what I could be, and all that I am.
Show me the stairway I have to climb,
Lord, for my sake, teach me to take one day at a time.
This is a prayer that I see twice every single day: Once when I wake up to prepare for the day and a second time as I wind up my affairs for the night. And it helped. It allowed me to take one piece of the puzzle at a time from the manifold parts of the law and reassemble them inside my head, albeit often with much difficulty. Law school has consistently pushed me against the walls of my own personal limits and I found myself repeatedly tearing them down just to make it through another exam—another semester—another year. I admit I was never as smart as my classmates. But by some grace, my academic destiny is all but complete.
In any case, law school is not just a lengthy exercise in intellectual sadomasochism, but it carries with it gifts of immeasurable value. One such gift is an extension of our youth. Most of us have been attending school our entire lives, and these extra four years give us an excuse to delay growing up. It gives us a chance to keep holding on to our ideals and our innocence up to the last possible moment. Indeed, to the casual outside observer, a law class would appear to be nothing more than a group of older, better-dressed high school students in action. Even our professors encourage this through their comical antics and shameless commentaries while discussing constitutional concepts like Stop-and-Frisk or family case law like Chi Ming Tsoi v. CA. In spite of all the pain involved, law school can be quite amusing. It's one huge carnival –- an attractive nuisance, if you will. Law school teaches us to be critical of all things brought before us, and this philosophy is always attended with humor and wit.
Another gift that law school affords us is the chance to clarify who we truly are. Many of us found ourselves in law school either because we couldn't get work that pays well enough or because we haven't made a career choice just yet. And long before even considering law school, we were writers, activists, artists, musicians, athletes and many other things that have nothing to do with legal education. To some people, law school is a reason enough to abandon these skills and passions for the much-needed additional study time. For others, this is simply unacceptable. These are the same people who join organizations in and outside school to find some semblance of normalcy in their lives—to say that law school is not the be-all and end-all of who I am as a person. We have law students who compete in sports or performance arts locally and internationally. We have writers who have penned brilliant pieces of literature, both outside and inside the legal spectrum. We have students who volunteer with charity organizations to work closely with and for the poor. All these is, to my mind, the Magis that we always keep hearing about: the more—the lingering discontent with the world and the corollary desire to always push it further towards goodness. Our character is built by the things that we pursue with fervor alongside the tests of academic life.
In the end, there are many people to thank: our mentors, our friends and even those who just love giving us a hard time. They all build up our character. I was a legal tabula rasa when I entered the Rockwell campus and I will be leaving it dramatically stronger and wiser than I was then.
Last Christmas, my dad gave me a beautiful silver Breitling wristwatch. I wear it proudly after several years of not having any watch at all and relying on my mobile phone for the time. This time, there were no inscriptions or prayers on its face. But I felt that it was my old man's way of saying "It is time."
End with the beginning in mind.
Violence is the exertion of force so as to injure or abuse.
- MERRIAM-WEBSTER DICTIONARY
Last week, the palace released the order to roll back the conversion of the 144-hectare Sumilao land and return it to the embrace of agriculture. Through the order was in no way conclusive as to the fate the Sumilao farmers' claim, it was, at least, small victory for the them, who took painful discouraging steps for more than ten years in a struggle to achieve a life of dignity and respect. And with this small victory, they were able to return home in time for Christmas for free, carrying with them gifts twice their combined body weights. A Merry Christmas, indeed.
I was fortunate enough to take part in what we considered their "last march to victory" from the DAR office in Quezon City to the Malacañang Palace in Manila. Church leaders from different orders and denominations fortified their ranks as well as students and members of civil society groups. This was the most silent and peaceful march I have ever experienced. Under the heat and smog of Metro Manila, we made it to the seat of power and home of the Filipino people.
I trust that I don't have to retell the story of Sumilao Farmers. This ridiculous tale has been all over the papers since October, betraying the laggard mechanisms of Filipino governance. Back in '97 the farmers staged a 28-day hunger strike, which resulted to an acceptable compromise, only to be taken away by the Supreme Court. This year, they walked for sixty days from Bukidnon to Manila and continued to walk around the Capital Region for another fifteen days, moving from one heartache to another... one rejection after another by a government that had sworn to protect its people.
Witnessing all these things, I realized that these farmers are some of the most violent people I have ever encountered. Beneath their smiles and cheerful dispositions, they have caused so much pain against themselves... against their own bodies, their own minds and their own emotions. They have willingly subjected themselves to suffering that compounded the burden they were already carrying. Hence, these people of the soil are masochists of the highest grade.
 |
| Tired of injustice, yet? |
Some high and mighty members of the business community have a criticized these farmers for acting out of emotion and seducing the public to fall in love with the dramatics and romanticism of the whole exercise. Indeed, Atty. Bag-ao admitted that these were "dramatics". These were emotion-wrenching moves to wake people up. But these were acts done only because people refused to listen to reason from the very beginning. Law is a difficult thing to understand (in spite of the palpable simplicity of this case). People will not take these things seriously until they are able to visualize the actual suffering. And this is what the farmers had provided for us: They painted a 75-day picture for the entire nation to comprehend just how unjust the system has become. Because reason was no longer viable, they had to resort to violence -- self-inflicted violence.
For 75 days, these farmers led the country to a place it's people had long forgotten. There is no such thing as a peaceful protest. Violence will always be present. The only difference is against whom this violence is directed. In this case, it was absorbed by the protesters themselves, never minding that they already had suffered much. For indeed, violence is nothing more than inconvenience multiplied a hundredfold. And for a few people to go through this, to completely abandon their comfort zones just to pursue something worth living for, is nothing short of heroic.
These people were not beggars... far from it. They were legitimate suitors who were merely calling the government's attention to an oversight that was so clear that it was grave moral abberation that the case lasted for as long as it did. These people never asked for anything. They were claiming what was already theirs: the land and all the dreams they had attached to it.
A couple of days before the farmers packed up for home, we were able to join them at a thanksgiving mass at the Church of the Gesu, where Fr. Danny Huang gave a priceless homily in three languages (English, Tagalog & Bisaya), he spoke of hope as living in the future -- to act as if your goal was "already there" -- na ang Paglaum kay kanang pagtuo nga anaa na kanimo ang imong gipangita.
Hope in our country is not difficult to find, regardless of the pain you see around you. Consider this: The farmers walked for 75 days, carrying with them only their clothes and beddings, with little or no money or food. They marched under the heat, the rain and they even weathered a storm along the Bicol territories, but never did a day pass by where they were left hungry. No sun ever set leaving the farmers without a roof over their heads. Wherever they went, there were kind souls who understood and empathized. This was a miracle to match the multiplication of bread and fish thousands of years ago. Heroes create heroes. Their power does not come from intelligence or skill, but the will to move others to take action for something greater than themselves... this is sacrifice... this is violence.
May the star of Christmas shine brightest on Sumilao this year.
This week was full of prouder moments... of being a human rights advocate and a part of the legal profession... of having friends who sacrifice and inspire... of being part of something beyond words, beyond life.
A few hours ago, I had an instructive encouter with a Sumilao farmer named Joey. I offered him a light and we started talking:
Joey: Diba ikaw 'tong kauban namo adtong isa ka adlaw sa San Carlos? Joey [offering me a handshake] (Aren't you the one who was with us the other day at San Carlos? Joey)
Mark: O. Mark [shaking his hand] (Yup. Mark.)
Mark: O, unsay nahitabo ganina? (So, what happened today?)
Joey: Wala mi pasudla sa Malacanang. (They didn't let us in Malacanang)
Mark: Mao ba? Wala man lay ning sugat sa inyo? (Really? Wasn't there anyone there to greet you?)
Joey: Wala lagi. (Nobody did.)
Mark: Yawa. Unya, unsay inyong gi buhat? (The devil. What did you do?)
Joey: Wala lang. Gahulat lang tawn mi didto. (Nothing. We just waited.)
Mark: Grabe sad ning inyong kalisud no? Wala pa gyuy ning buhat ani sukad. (This is some sacrifice you're making. Nobody's ever done this before.)
Joey: Mao lagi. (Yup.)
Mark: Naa nakay asawa, Joey? (Are you married, Joey?)
Joey: O. Tulo na gani ako anak. Isa ka four-year old, isa ka two ug isa ka one-year old. (Yes. I have three children. A four-year old, a two-year old and a one-year old).
Mark: Wala ka gimingaw? (Do you miss them?)
Joey: Mingaw lagi. Sa buntag ok lang kay daghan man tao. Bibo pa. Pero sa gabii, mingawon gyud ta. (Yup. During the day, it's alright because we're surrounded with so many people and we have a nice time. But in the evening's, I really miss my family.)
Mark: First time ba ninyo sa Manila? (Is it your first time in Manila?)
Joey: Kami kadalasan, first time pa. (For most of us, it is.)
Mark: Kuyaw sad mo no? First time ninyo, daghan na kaayo mog nakit-an? (Wow. It's your first time and you've already visited all these places.)
Joey: Mao lagi. Pag agi nako sa EDSA mura gyud ko'g ga-damgo. Kining mga lugara, gaka-kit-an ra gyud ni namo sa TV. Pero karun, naa na mi diri. Kuyaw gihapon na experience. (Yup. As I was walking along EDSA, I felt like I was dreaming. These are places that we only see on television. But now, here we are. This is an amazing experience.)
Mark: Padayun lang gyud, bai. Bisang lisud na kaayo, siguro nakit-an man ninyo na bisan asa mo mu-adto, daghan gyud ga suporta sa inyo. Gikan sa Surigao abot sa Manila, naa man gyuy ning dawat sa inyo diba? (Just hold on, friend. It's been hard, I'm sure you've noticed that no matter where you go, you will always find many people who support you. From Surigao to Manila, there have always been people who have lent you aid, right?)
Joey: Mao lagi. Naa gyud mi pirmi matulugan. Wala gyud mi nagutom. (Right. We always had a place to sleep. We were never left hungry.)
Mark: Daghan pa gihapon buotan na Pilipino, diba? Mahuman nalang lagi unta ni para mu-uli na mo. Pasko na raba hapit. (There are still many good Filipinos, right? I just hope that all this will be over soon so you guys can go home. Christmas is coming very soon.)
Joey: Mao lagi. Sa kaluoy sa Dyos. Mahuman na unta. (Right. By God's grace, I hope it will be.)
We shared a few jokes just to lighten the mood and Joey excused himself. After listening to one of Marlon's enlightening lectures, Det and I had to leave because she had a 6am call time at work. And so we took a cab and I dropped Det off at her place... and then... for no clear reason... I walked... I walked from the San Carlos Seminary to my home.
It took me forty minutes this time because of my unusually heavy backpack.
When I got home, I could not feel more grateful.
How petty our problems seem after talking to a tired landless farmer.
We continue to fight. Tomorrow's another day.
Good evening friends.
A colleague of mine who has family in Lebanon emailed me last night about what happened. Five days ago, Israeli Jet fighters indiscriminately bombed Lebanon in response to the kidnapping of two of their soldiers. 60 Lebanese are dead and 150 are wounded (and my friends, the next time you read the papers and find the word wounded, this does not mean people with chicken scratches… these include people who have had their legs amputated or their eyes gouged out). Men, women, and children. No exceptions.
For those of you who are familiar with the principle of proportionality, this is definitely not it. Israel receives $3 billion in military aid from the United States every year. Their military technology is second to none. Nukes, warplanes, satellite capabilities… believe me, if you see it in the movies, the Israelis have it. Lebanon has old guns, old rockets and a few helicopters that were used during the Vietnam War. Go figure.
Many Lebanese are fleeing to neighboring countries as refugees. This happened five days ago and the fires in Lebanon have not yet been extinguished completely.
Why am I talking about a country hundreds of miles away? On the night of the 70th Anniversary of the Ateneo Law School why on Earth am I talking about war? Because, my friends, I want to clarify what we are celebrating tonight. It does not matter if we call ourselves Ateneans. It does not matter if we are Christian by name. It does not matter if we are Filipinos by birth. These things will not matter if we do not choose to be human first – if we do not feel the plight of our fellow human beings, empathize with their suffering and choose to respond accordingly. Was this not the same desire of San Ignacio and San Francisco Xavier?
I have been working with the Ateneo Human Rights Center for almost three years now and I can strongly say that these years have been the most difficult and the most precious moments of my life. My work has brought me to the mountains of Mindoro and Tarlac, to the jails of Metro Manila, to the remotest barrios of Northern Mindanao and, most recently, to the former border between East and West Germany. There are many places that need us – many voices that call upon us. There is human suffering in so many places and we have a choice on whether to respond to them or to ignore them completely.
Human rights is about facelessness. It is about extinguishing the borders and differences that make us unequal in our rights. It is about recognizing that we are all human beings complete in dignity. If you had noticed, at the start of this speech I did not greet anyone by the titles that we have grown so accustomed to: Attorney, Doctor, Professor. These are not titles of respect. These are mere titles of classification – formalities. People who address us as such do not necessarily respect us; chances are they do it out of habit or because they are expected to. These titles tell people what studies you finished not who you are. The only title that gives genuine respect is what I used to address all of you tonight: friends.
So my friends, on this 70th Anniversary, we honor our school because it has given us the opportunity to be great people. The key word here is opportunity. To say that every Atenean is great is just plain ignorance. Not every Atenean is a Bobby Gana or an Ed Nolasco. We have Ateneans who cheat on their taxes, bribe government officials, or manipulate election returns. There are Ateneans who lie, murder and rape as if they were uneducated and uncivilized. The word Atenean is, likewise, just a title that describes where you studied. Never be fooled by titles.
Our school is great because it offers us a shot at greatness. For those who choose not to take this chance, they have only themselves to blame. For those people who have taken this opportunity to become greater than mere titles, this night is for you.
How does one become great? Do what you do best no matter what it may be. We can be good at so many things but we can only be excellent in a few. Find those talents, skills or dreams you are superior in and lose yourself in them. Strive to outdo yourself every single day.
Not all of us can be Justices of the Supreme Court. Not all of us can be working for the United Nations or Amnesty International. Not all of us can be priests, pastors, imams or religious leaders. And I am very sure not all of us will turn out to be practicing lawyers.
Find your place. You may be an excellent debater… go, compete and argue your heart out. If you love books, you might want to start writing one of your own. If you excel in sports then try going pro. Every single day, we are tempted to forego the excellent for the good. So much time is wasted in doing good. Like I said, there are many people and places that need us. In this short lifetime, we just have to find where we are needed the most and stay there. We each can find our own ways of inspiring people and changing the world. Pray through the work that you do and do it with magnificent passion. That, my friends, is heroism. That is what the Atenean ought to be.
If ten or twenty years from now, you become role-models in your respective fields and someone asks you if being an Atenean had anything to do with your success. By all means say yes. But don’t forget to tell them that: Ateneo gave me the shot and I took it.
Have a good evening.
Originally published in the June 2005 edition of ThePalladium for my column Legal Personality.
Remember when you were in first grade, your teacher would always remind you: "It is wrong to steal, to cheat, to lie, to be dishonest."? Even more so for Catholic schools where the word "wrong" is effectively replaced by "a sin".
Have you ever been dishonest in your life? Are you a liar? A cheat? A thief? A criminal?
At the top of your head, it would be very easy to answer these questions with a firm "NO". You would never imagine yourself being called these degrading names – labels that only belong to those people on the streets or in prison.
Let me pose more questions closer to home: "Do you have pirated (stolen) video, music, or software CD’s in your home? Have you ever corrected a waiter who mistakenly charged you for three drinks instead of the four that you consumed? Have you ever cut into a line of people during registration or in a bank just because a friend of yours happened to be there?
Where does this kind of behavior come from when all our lives, we have been taught to love one other, to be good, honest, kind, polite, patient, respectful, obedient, responsible… and all that? Is this really the easy way out? Or can we justify this trend of dishonesty a "necessary evil" for our very survival?
We Filipinos live in the most ridiculous of circumstances. We are a first-world culture trapped in a third-world country. Everyday, we are enticed by the wonders of the modern world: mobile phones, TV’s, computers, movies, shopping malls, video games, designer clothes, signature perfumes, skin-whitening products… these things are added to our cart of "learned necessities" while our means remain less than sufficient to meet even the most basic of our "real" needs. We Filipinos constantly live in denial. We refuse to show the world that we cannot afford to enjoy these things.
So what do we do? We imitate and approximate. We create copies (though inferior) of what other people are enjoying. We try to find some semblance of satisfaction in our lives by pretending to have much more than we actually do.
An optimist would say: Then we are a creative people – Dreamers – people who are resilient and determined to find happiness even in scarcity.
A pessimist, on the other hand would remark: We are truly lost. We deny what is real and focus on the things that can never be. We are plagued by this "national delusion" that would do more damage than good.
Whenever something goes wrong, we immediately blame the government, we blame religion, our superiors, and even the weather? We have nothing but heroic expectations from other people yet we meet our own responsibilities with empty nods and phony grins. We have enough blame in our hearts to go around for the next century and, yet, many of us cannot even find peace in our own households, our barkadas, and in our own relationships.
So... how can we not be dishonest, when even the very life that we live is a lie?
What I say: We are in a place that we need to get out of soon.
