My Message As Samahan sa Pilosopiya Core

This message is originally meant to advertise the upcoming release of the Pilosopo Tasyo and the Seniors' Party, where everyone is invited to attend. But then, after reading Doc Guss's message to the seniors, it seems fitting to leave also a message from the outgoing senior core members of the Samahan sa Pilosopiya, your home organization. So, this will serve as an (unofficial) follow up to what our department chair said.

Doc Guss has pretty much said everything, reminding us who we ought to be and what we ought to do in this bleak world filled with problems and crises we have barely experienced or encountered in our four years of stay in the Ateneo. Indeed, now is the time to face and catch up with reality after being nursed and formed in this institution. It appears that the days of frequent partying and aimless gazing is over, and it is time to really work hard and be mature citizens of this country (okay, I admit that there is still area for party and drinks, but let's work on the necessary things first). It's time for us now to be real grown-ups, as men and women ready to devote our lives to love and service, to learn to see and act upon everything both with wonder and passion, as well as with the sense of urgency and responsibility that is demanded of us.

Fellows, it's time for us to become true beacons of hope, as Doc Guss said. It is time for us to show the world that we can do something, that we can change ourselves and then change this world by getting out of our comfort zones, re-thinking things, and changing our ways. It is time for us to show the world that our generation knows something more than lying on the couch and surfing the net. It is time for us to let everyone know that we can move. We are more than what they think us to be: either as social critics who are a threat to the order of institutions whilst name-dropping philosophers and quoting their books to show our expertise, or, for those who are in the Church, as people who pray without acting while going around condemning people because we don't share the same stands as we do (I know you get my drift here). I believe that after our four years of philosophy, we are people who can strive for reform, love the poor, engage institutions and groups in non-violent and mind-opening conversations, and, most important of all, be real human beings towards other human beings.

And I think that we could start with gratitude, to appreciate how these four years of study made us who we are. And this gratitude is the kind that is not done by merely saying "thank you" and then walking away. Rather, it is the kind that allows us to realize that each and every person, thing, or event which have become a part of our own selves have done so much for us, and we have to pay back, or to put it in a more proper way, pay everything forward.

To my fellow seniors, I ask you to do our simple acts of gratitude by starting to remember. I ask you, never forget. Let us never forget the times when we worked together to finish those which were asked of us. Let us never forget the responsibility and accountability that we have towards one another, that which we learned only in those times when we have been together. Let us never forget those times when we responded, as one and in our own unique ways, the call to reach out and be a person for others (as exemplified by our own experiences during Ondoy, Pepeng, and the Maguindanao massacres). Let us never forget our discussions which forced us to think and engage others in conversation. Let us never forget our philosophical adventure which I believe was quite worthwhile for all of us. And even though most of us have erased in our hard drives our reviewer for our comprehensive exam and, for some, notes for theses, let us never forget, most of all, the discipline we have acquired from years of studying philosophy, the values that we have learned along the way, and most of all, the sense of wonder which urges us to search for evidence (quoting Dr. Angeles here) which grants us access to truths which seem to be obliterated and covered up by the present conditions of our world. I believe that it is only in remembering these things that we learn to move forward and mature.

And to those who are still trudging the path to the end, we hope that you learn something from us and our adventures. Learn from our actions, from our successes and failures, from our achievements and mistakes, from our selflessness and selfishness, from each and every thing. But of course, always do the right thing, that which is asked of you.