Speech Delivered by the President to the CMIC Graduating Class of 2010
My dear graduates of 2010. You have probably seen me year after year, on the podium, officiating over the ceremonies, but not really delivering any speech. If you see me now for the first time, it is not because we have run out of speakers, but because this year, I wanted to be the one to deliver this speech because there is a grim message I feel you need to hear before you leave the hallways of CMIC: a message that will prepare you for the road ahead.
Too many times we hear about great nations and organizations getting together to talk about the world’s problems to issue strategies that will help us arrive at solutions. Too often we hear about problems in warfare, human rights, and economic turmoil among many plagues we suffer from right now. We are no strangers to terminologies like “ecology”, “environment”, “global warming”, the “greenhouse effect”, and “climate change”. The suffering environment is often brought up, but curiously we often dismiss it as one among many problems, and surely as one which does not rank among our priorities. Call it an attitude of indifference, a state of ignorance, or a culture of “business as usual” as we ignore the obvious. I stand here not to sound preachy. I aim not to merely inspire you or educate you. My intention is to disturb you. I wish to disturb you because of an impending peril we can still avoid today.
All too often at beauty pageants we hear the common answer of “world peace” being the popular ideal for the future. It is a world peace where people stop fighting among themselves, or at least that is how most of us will define it. If you are updated to world events, you will notice how catastrophies brought about by natural calamities seem the order of the day. Our usual reaction is to question whatever the people of these calamity- stricken areas did that was so bad for them to deserve such punishment. But we fail to ask the more important questions like, “Are we next?” or “Are we still lucky enough we didn’t get hit?” We fail to make the more important observations such as how we in the face of calamity tend to wake up, forget our trivial problems, and unite with one another to ease the sufferings of our fellow human beings. We saw how many fellow Filipinos, even politicians, dropped everything just to help out. The human spirit when disturbed does realize what is really important. Its disappointing how world peace is achievable, even for a short while, as long as calamities keep coming our way!
In medical science, we know viruses to be organisms that infect the body by occupying human cells and using the resources of the cell to replicate and multiply. When the resources of the cell have been depleted, the virus hordes then destroy the cell and transfer to other cells to propagate themselves. Applying this analogy to the human capacity to exploit his environment is not new, but we still assert that we are better and more intelligent than viruses. We say are intelligent beings but we often fail to see the earth as a living sentient within our own definition of a what a living sentient being is. But have we ever stopped to think whether viruses had the intellect to recognize the human body other than a food source and a sojourn? Perhaps we must start applying this analogy because in the same manner as how the human body has mechanisms such as fever, immune cells and antibodies to combat the virus threat, the earth as being may have its own mechanisms to protect itself. Think: for what purpose other than for the destruction of man and his creations do calamities occur? Time and time again we have mistaken our limited comprehension for bold intelligence.
If the increasing number of calamities is not warning enough, try simplifying our understanding of the earth in human terms. What happens to a human being who has suffered from 3rd degree burns? Don’t the trees we continue to cut serve as the skin of the earth protecting against the burning sun? Marine fossils and coral formations have been discovered even in the highest of peaks and the driest of lands, which leads to the conclusion that the earth was covered by water millions of years ago. Imagine if the entire surface of the earth was covered with water for a million years, would there be any terrestrial remnant of any human civilization after that? What if the inundation and sinking of the islands, a logical consequence of the melting of polar ice due to global warming, was a mechanism by which the earth healed itself? We are not strangers to these probabilities today, and the signs of the times show the symptoms of an ailing earth.
Again there was that world peace I mentioned that could be brought about by our united efforts, and then there is also a world peace where no one is left to cause anymore destruction. Come to think of it, world peace will be inevitable, be it by our hand or after the earth decides to heal itself. Either way, it shows that while we are expendable, the earth is not. While we need the earth for our existence, the earth is not concerned about our personal struggles, nor does it recognize our self-proclaimed title as “stewards of the earth”, not only because we have proven ourselves unworthy of that title, but simply because the earth can exist without us.
It may sound unfashionable or politically incorrect to be advocating for environmental protection to the youth in this day and age of science and technology. Nothing would seem to faze us, not when it seems that everything seems to be going great for global connectivity and the unified interest of the global economy. But have you ever stopped to think where all these pleasures and the attendant problems would rank in a dying world?
We have a social and moral obligation toe to replenish, sustain, and live “green”; an obligation to diminish our carbon footprints and to make all efforts to diminish global warming, and to do all these though a massive, immediate, and concerted action. In order to save ourselves in time, our adoption of environment-friendly measures must be not only be worldwide, it must be done together, and with utmost urgency. The environment is not only an incidental nor collateral issue; it must be number one among all priorities today!
From one of my CSR trainings in Junior Chamber International, I realized how frail we are against a world which chooses to ignore the changes around us, just so we can get on with our “business as usual”. If you plunge a frog into boiling water, unsurprisingly the frog will jump out due to the sudden change of temperature- an evasive maneuver to sudden change it detects from its environment. But if you place boil tap water slowly but gradually, Froggy will not detect the change, but perish instead by the time it becomes too late! We are human and frail like frogs because of our natural tendency to ignore the gradual changes around us, when in fact it is those gradual changes that will bring about the most damage.
I hope I have started to do my part in awakening not just you the graduating students, but also everyone present here today.
To the graduates this time, there are so many things that I must envy you for. I envy you because of this wonderful and eventful era that you are graduating into. Unlike the present, the technology for me back then consisted of green screened bulky computers, and dual-colored and boxy television sets, which were already a privilege to own back then. In this age you have your flat screened LCD’s and stylish Ipod’s. “Tubig-tubig”, “bato-lata”, and the friendly neighbourhood ice cream vendor provided the means for us kids to get by. Nowadays, online games and Facebook sap the energy not only from kids but from adults as well. In gardening school back then, I remember having to use a pick and a shovel to plant some trees. Now you can manage your own acres of Farmville property with a mouse or a finger pad. Let’s just say, the technology during my time did not convince me as it does now, that anything is truly possible.
There are two ideas of graduation. The first idea is that graduation that comes after passing a series of exams. If you make it, you pass. If you don’t, you simply have to try again until you conquer failure. After that graduation is another series of exams within a new series of grade levels that lead to another higher graduation. That is the graduation that school offers.
There is a second kind of graduation, one that ends all exams. It still consists of a series of trials and the perpetual pursuit of correcting errors, until there is no more opportunity to do so because we die. This is the graduation of life. In reality, based on the second idea, you have never really graduated.
My opinion is that the graduation that you know is a fiction made by the school system that may tend to blind you to the education of real life up until the moment it hits you – there is a real and bigger world out there: a world which will not wait for you if you are slow, not spoon-feed you when you don’t feel like it, and not conduct re-takes nor extend the deadlines of your requirements. It is a world that can be unforgiving to the weak, but very kind to the strong and courageous.
Many of you will make it. Maybe a few will not be as successful as he/she would have hoped. But when any of you will be up there, do not wallow too much in success, but remember the ideals inculcated in you by your alma mater, and forever treasure the bonds your have forged amongst yourselves. So that several years from now, when a friend calls up looking for a job or opportunity, always remember the Immaculatarian way: do not merely offer a reference or ask him/her to come and meet you. Be selfless enough to go out there and pick him up yourself!
Our Vision: “To be a well-spring of exceptional educational opportunities,” and our Mission: “To produce High-Calibre Graduates who will play the leading roles in their chosen careers,” are all centred on empowering our learners to, quoting in part my favourite zen guru Mr. Mahatma Ghandi, “be the change we want to see in this world”.
I hereby end this message with one of my favourite poems entitled “Anyway” by, with credits to a very selfless, hard working, and loving woman I will always admire, Mother Teresa, and with due thanks to JCI Philippines Past National President Fulbert C. Woo for the heads-up that such an inspiration exists:
People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
Fare thee well IMMACULATARIANS! BE THE CHANGE!
Great speech Pres!