Students once

I am pondering these thoughts while stuck in the “normal” traffic on Edsa on my way home. The MRT is crippled. Working people are all over the busiest avenue in the metropolis; everyone wants to go home after a long day.

I am quite lucky to get a comfortable seat in a bus, and I am observing how many of my fellow taxpayers are struggling to get a stress-free ride.

I send my friend a text message advising her to take a bus instead of lining up for damned eternity at the MRT station, and she replied by cursing its management and the lethargic government for their inaction toward this problem. I cannot blame her. I am a commuter, too. Whenever things like this occur in our everyday life, I ask myself whether public officials have ever experienced the hell of commuting, including standing for hours in a queue just to get inside an MRT station. Well, why would they even try commuting when they have their luxury wheels?

On my way home I can’t help but notice posters and tarps put up by government officials, bearing pictures of them wearing their best smiles, projecting the optimistic view of public service, and congratulating the graduates. Of course, it’s graduation season again. It’s the time of the year when the hard work of students and their parents are recognized through a piece of paper that will help them get a decent life after school. Ideally.

These tarps and posters are an archaic way of congratulating the graduates. There should be more innovative ways to do so. Medals that are used to recognize students’ exceptional academic abilities and skills are now plastered with the best smiles of government officials, as though they are saying, “Hey, you’ve done a great job!” If ever their pictures land on diplomas, too, I must send my congratulations to them for their creativity. That could be the sweetest memento for a graduate to ever receive: public officials smiling as if sending you the mockery that even medals and diplomas are all part of their corruption and don’t-forget-me-in-the-next-election scheme.

“Where have all their ideals gone?” I ask myself. I am obviously referring to the elected government officials who graduated from prestigious universities here and abroad, and who, with their degrees, are supposedly instrumental in forming a nation capable of prioritizing its citizenry’s welfare.

“Were they bred by wolves?” I cannot justify the answer to that question but it seems like “yes.” They were absolutely bred by the system, such that they have lost their causes and ideals. Or maybe they are the system itself, which will lead us to our downfall.

It is a sad truth that these elected officials who were once young men and women walking the halls of universities where brilliant minds and ideals blossom are now part of the decaying system.

I wish to send a short message to those who govern the nation, from the legislative, judicial and executive branches:

You have probably been invited by educational institutions to speak at graduation ceremonies, to share your experience as a valued public servant. You have probably composed the most encouraging speech to the young and idealistic minds who will eventually be part of making or breaking the nation.

Remember that you were all once students. You probably knew what hard work meant, especially those who had to start from scratch. (I do not know about those who were born with a silver spoon in their mouth.) You had brilliant and idealistic minds back then, and I believe those ideals fueled you to seek, and win, public office. Our country is now filled with screwed-up “intelligence,” which brought us to where we are now. You know the problem. You were just sleeping on it. You were just milking every one of us, fattening your bank accounts with taxpayers’ hard-earned money.

You were once students and I bet you wouldn’t want to receive a medal or a diploma plastered with the smiling pictures of government officials. You were once students brimming with hope that one day you would be tools in making your country reach its full potential. Where have all your ideals gone? Or did you have any?

Jon Andrew R. Sison, 25, says he is “lost in the universe of books and practices digital marketing in real life.”