Exceptional

Each year at UP Diliman, we hold one general commencement exercise, which this year involved 4,610 undergraduate and graduate students from 376 degree programs. In addition, each college can hold its own recognition rites, which are more intimate and somewhat informal but very important for the new graduates as they bond with their families, faculty and staff.

I could easily have begged off from all 23 of the college recognition rites, but I do make it a point to attend a few each year, sometimes as guest speaker but more often just to meet the graduates and their families, and to listen to other speakers. This year the general commencement guest speaker was Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno, and the one at the College of Law was the Senate president, Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III.

The speeches I appreciate most are the valedictories, which are not necessarily delivered by the graduate with the highest weighted average grade because the brightest students are
not always the ones who want to give speeches. What we do then is to invite the students with the highest grades, for example summa cum laude, to “compete.”

This year we had 36 summas out of 3,666 undergraduates. Only 12 of the summas competed to deliver the valedictory, and the one chosen was Arman Ali Ghodsinia, who you may have read or heard about in the media. (Visit our website, upd.edu.ph and click on Super Summa 2017 to see wonderful jump and wacky shots of our geniuses.)

I’ve been asked several times if we intentionally chose him because he has roots in Marawi City, and I answer: No, we
chose him because he had the best speech, and the best delivery. That he has roots in Marawi was coincidental in his selection
as speaker, but of course, at the graduation, those roots
became highly symbolic.

Double the scholar

As I explained to the audience, Arman was getting his summa in one of the most difficult degree programs in UP: molecular biology.

Arman was able to get into the tough Philippine Science National High School and then to UP, an “iskolar ng bayan” (people’s scholar) twice over and proof that state support for education can make a difference, especially for young people in difficult circumstances, such as being part of a minority. Arman talked about discrimination against Muslims in the Philippines and how, even in his mother’s family which was not poor, there were children who died from lack of access to healthcare.

He talked about how his UP education and his ate (elder sister), also a UP graduate, had formed his views on being Filipino. (His father is Iranian, but has taken Filipino citizenship.) He reminded the audience that as a molecular biologist, he can say with certainty that we all have the same genetic “building blocks.” He spoke about his hopes that UP would continue, through its courses, to build a sense of social cohesion among Filipinos.

Arman’s valedictory took even greater meaning because of the war in Marawi and the imposition of martial law in Mindanao. The graduation, too, was taking place on the last day of Ramadan, Islam’s holy month of fasting.

Despite being a summa, and a big guy (not your typical nerd), Arman is low-key. One of his former teachers told me he was quite shy and would actually blush when called to recite. But there’s Arman for you, acknowledging, by name, his closest friends, and his teachers in molecular biology as well as his other courses (I’m proud to say, two social science faculty members). After the ceremony I met his family, including his superwoman ate, who is now in UP’s law school.

No time for love

Monday afternoon I attended the College of Law recognition rites and the valedictory was delivered by Carlos S. Hernandez Jr., top of the class as cum laude.

The College of Law is tough, maybe one of the last bastions of “terror” professors. It’s also one of the few units left in UP that has yet to produce a summa cum laude. Carlos talked about how tough law school was — a life of “readings before feelings,” meaning it allows no time for love relationships.

But he reminded the audience that there are law students whose lives are even tougher because they have to support themselves through law school. He already had a degree in chemical engineering and was working for Unilab when he decided to pursue a childhood dream of becoming a lawyer. He chose UP because tuition was relatively low, but he still kept the job, like many others in UP’s law school, so he could pay for his tuition.

Carlos talked about another tough challenge as he began his life as a law student: being gay. Expecting discrimination, he practiced—demonstrating it to the audience — a baritone voice to introduce himself to his professors. But early on he realized he would not need to put up a pretense, at least not in UP, and has since found other LGBT law classmates who have organized themselves into a group called Outlaws (smile), committed to working for antidiscrimination laws and the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Carlos’ LGBT advocacy received much applause, but just as impressive was his plea to his classmates—and, I presume, the whole of UP — to put a stop to our elitism in terms of belittling other schools and those whose viewpoints may be different from ours.

His remarks resonated with Arman’s the previous day, with their references to discrimination and, even more importantly, their calls to fight that discrimination and find ways to unite people.

Humility

I’ve never liked the reference to UP students as being “the best and brightest.” I think a better term is “exceptional” — students who, yes, are bright, but are also fortunate to benefit from a good basic education that then got them into UP. They are exceptional, too, in being humble enough to recognize that they are privileged as a iskolar ng bayan, and that they can begin paying back even while studying by being open to new learning, in and out of the classrooms.

Being exceptional does put a person at risk of, what else but, exceptionalism. It can take the form of chauvinism as a nation (as Donald Trump demonstrates all the time), as gender (guy power, girl power, gay power), as a school.

By coincidence, Monday morning I was texting Dean Aurorita Roldan of Home Economics about elitism in UP. Wouldn’t it be great, she asked, if we could be described as “magaling na, humble pa”?

Arman and Carlos challenge the myth of the self-absorbed millennial. They are a generation proving how young people can be bright and wise (magaling), yet humble and unassuming. Only with humility can people begin to talk about compassion, and serving the nation.

mtan@inquirer.com.ph