IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE COPY CENTERS and printing stations all over the country will be swamped with requests for thesis-binding. Groups of seniors will huddle in 24-hour food joints with their laptops and coffee mugs at hand. Tissue boxes will fly off supermarket shelves as everyone scrambles to tie some loose ends. Surveys or ?experience checklists? that try to capture the highlights of university life will again dominate the social networking sphere. At about the same time, the beaming faces of politicians will look down from electric wires or road signs, with messages like ?Happy graduation!? and ?Congratulations, graduates!?
In April, the scholars of the people who comprise Batch 2010, molded by the triumphs and mistakes encountered during four (or more) years of schooling, will don the sablay, the ethnic-inspired woven sash that has become the trademark graduation-day attire at the University of the Philippines.
At the end of June, President Macapagal-Arroyo will graduate from Malacańang with a myriad sablay of a different kind, chief among them the corruption scandals involving her, the members of her family and administration cronies and a surge in human rights violations resulting from a culture of impunity. While it is true that history will be her judge, one thing is for sure: as far as the presidency is concerned, GMA has been dropped from the honors list.
But graduation is not the end, but only the beginning, as many commencement speakers have pointed out. In many ways, the 2010 election is a transition period for Filipinos, especially the youth. The polls will be automated for the first time, signaling the nation?s first step toward cleaner and more honest elections. In a sense, our country is like the fresh graduate who, though young and somewhat inexperienced, constantly sharpens the saw in order to claim his place in the competitive labor force.
Election officials have been assuring us that computerized voting will be fraud-proof. But if there is one thing we learned from the outgoing administration, it is that our democracy is in peril and we must do all we can to keep it alive. No one ever said nation-building is easy, but neither did anyone say it is impossible. Every ballot cast is a stand, and each stand represents one Filipino?s vision for his family, his community and his country. The ballot is the citizens? primary voice in the political process, and though we, as individuals, are mere drops in an ocean, there is no stopping the wave we can generate with collective action.
Graduates are often told that graduation is followed by a rude awakening that will jolt them to awareness of the real world. The possession of a diploma is emblematic of a young person?s independence achieved through aptitude and perseverance.
We as citizens are now being called to redefine and reaffirm our independence. This collective independence is no longer defined as freedom from colonizers but freedom from the shackles of ignorance and selfishness. The moment every Filipino sees himself as unique and distinct (but not distant or separate) from his countrymen, we will be putting, the future of the Philippines in the best of hands?our own, as somebody once suggested.
For many, it is a life-long struggle to situate one?s self in the nation, and see the nation in one?s self. Congratulations to the graduates who resolve to do just that and who will continue to offer the fruits of their labor to our country and to the Filipino.
Lysa Marie Angeli P. Britanico, 16, is a journalism freshman at the University of the Philippines Diliman.
