I can still remember that day. It was one afternoon in third-year college, during the first semester, at the school cafeteria, and I was eating with my friend when I said I wanted to change the world. Well, I didn?t say those words exactly, but I told him what I wanted to do with my life. Before he realized it, I was already telling him how I had decided to make a difference, no matter how insignificant it might be to other people or to the world. I was going to revive the Philippine comics industry.

There were two things wrong in the picture. First, our school was not the place to declare such kind of dream. It is primarily a business school, concentrating on management, politics and economics. Thinking about comic books does not have any merit to the great majority of students who are going to enter the corporate world or government service or run their own potentially profitable businesses, as their own way of making a difference or their own mark in this world.

Second, I was not really into comics. My friend thought that I drew well, based on the doodles I made on my notebooks during lectures. He assumed that I must be into American comics and was simply giving in to the geek in me. But the truth is my knowledge about American comic books was limited to those that had been turned into films and choosing between Batman and Superman. At that time, I did not even know the difference between Marvel and DC.

Before the day I confessed to my friend, I didn?t know what I wanted to do in life. Before college, I wanted to take up architecture at any state university, but I ended up taking management in this other school, which is best known for its dress code and expensive tuition. No matter how far it had flung me from my planned path to the future, I stuck to this decision. I made the best of it, got decent grades and graduated on time.

But one day, I found myself looking back to the time when my high school friends and I decided to join a comic book contest. I conceptualized the story and the characters and they drew and colored them. This particular memory made me realize that there weren?t any comic books anymore here in the Philippines (or so I thought at that time). I recalled that more than a decade ago, my dad would bring home comic books he bought at some newsstands. And when I was in high school, there were Filipino comics with entertaining stories that ran through 15 issues. But aside from those, I had no other recollection of Filipino comics, killing any interest I would have in them.

Later I realized that I wanted those trivial memories back. I wanted those short stories about magic creatures and about sincere or humorous characters, with morals that are difficult to find these days. It struck that these comic books involved the people I have lost in my life: my dad and my high school friends. And I decided to use what I had.

Since I was in a business school, the first thing I had to do was to know who were the industry players, their competitors and then make an industry analysis. I was going to create a business plan that would put comics back in the streets, where anyone can find them and appreciate the art and the silliness of the story. I was going to help comic book creators raise the status of their profession by emphasizing the beauty of their works and the skills they brought into them. Our generation needed to recognize the medium beyond the Internet and television.

I was passionate about doing it, although I knew it was something extraordinary in the existing environment and that the people around me would have little interest in it or consider it trivial. I actually sketched a 10-year plan in a notebook, detailing my goals for every year or two and how I was going to achieve them.

Through research, I eventually became aware of the Filipino creators, the respect they demanded, their dilemmas, and the many challenges they faced. I learned that they were selling comic books in certain stores, and that you had to ask nicely the person behind the counter to take them out of the back shelf so you can browse through them. I went to Internet groups, online forums and blogs to ask questions and find answers, albeit they could be wrong. It was appalling to learn there was no industry to speak of or any profitable market for them. Turning out comic books was usually just a hobby or a sideline to a ?real? job.

At around this time, I observed well-known Filipino comic heroes break into prime time TV, making some people think that comic books were on the way to regaining their ascendancy. I wondered if all the ?fantaserye? [fantasy series] would actually become comic books and if all those stories would be interpreted by characters drawn on pages, not by celebrities endorsing consumer goods.

Then it hit me: For Filipino comic superheroes to exist in whatever medium, they must be able to sell products rather than simply promote the idea that good triumphs over evil in the end. The ideologies they fight for must be rooted in advertising profit. Never mind the technical skills of idealistic writers and artists who are forced to go into Web comics or publish their own books in a futile effort to breathe life into a dead industry.

My 10-year plan now gathers dust in the face of these realities. My wish to reviving the local comic book industry remains. My desire to make a difference made me aware of myself and the realities around me. It brought me into the company of others who used to be involved in the comics scene and tried to bring about the things I dreamed of. It taught me that what passion can achieve is still limited by economic realities and the requirements of mass consumerism.

That afternoon in our school cafeteria, my friend, after listening to me ramble on about comics and my 10-year plan for the industry, told me he understood. He said that knowing how strongly I felt about it, he would support me. Then he gave me a pat on the shoulder and said, ?Good luck.?

Don Valdez, 21, has a master?s degree in management.