Scholar of the people

I graduated from a state university. For eight semesters my tuition was subsidized and I paid in full what private-school enrollees paid as down payment. I felt fortunate, and indebted.

Gratitude to my university and to the government consumed my college life. I strived hard to maintain a high GPA, enough to make me graduate with Latin honors. But the same sweet gratitude obscured the bitter realities, such as a rust-stained white uniform (because steel chairs had not been repainted since 19-kopong-kopong), and a weeklong enrollment process (because getting clearance signatures for an academic scholarship is a journey intended for Odysseus). A scholarship, after all, comes with a price.

But government scholars shouldn’t complain. They get discounts and, best of all, free education. But shouldn’t everyone be, technically, a government scholar? The Constitution acknowledges every Filipino’s right to quality and accessible education, and the government is mandated to make that happen. I do not believe there is a proviso to this right. How come I was brainwashed into thinking that I owe the government no grievance merely because it put me through school? How is it possible that most scholars are made to feel they cannot complain about broken toilets or deliberate harassment by professors? Just because education is made accessible doesn’t mean quality can be done away with. Just because I don’t pay doesn’t mean I have to constantly give thanks and bite my tongue.

Gratitude is a matter of courtesy, not an obligation—or worse, a cult practice. I’d tolerate the indulgence of thanking the kind grantor with a sack of coconuts and the fattest cattle if the scholarship were given with no qualification or consideration. But students are accepted into public schools after rigorous qualifying exams. They are, in reality, enrolled on their merits, not on the government’s generosity. The government’s reason for holding qualifying exams is actually a result of its inability to extend the service to every Filipino; thus, it prioritizes the ones with higher aptitudes. Government-controlled schools were purposely built to realize the Filipino people’s mandate to create an intelligent citizenry. It is entirely different from the objectives of private benefactors who act out of pure liberality or in consideration of a future service. In fact, it’s the government that owes the scholars.

But the scholars in turn owe the Filipino people. Thus, low-cost education—while it should not be considered a divine mercy from the governmental deity—should not be frittered away. The dream of an intelligent and competent nation is a dream shared by each Filipino, and every Juan, the government and the scholar included, must work together to abduct that dream from slumber and make it a reality.

My view is simple: The people are the boss. The government, as a creation of the people, follows the boss. A Filipino cannot be the boss when he/she demands what is unconscionable to the rest because he/she is not, in him/herself, the people. Then, I reckon it is more fitting to call one a scholar of the people rather than a government scholar.

I regretted being less vocal about the inadequacies I experienced while in college. But I am glad I was able to make myself part of the smarter nation dreamed about, until now, by the Filipino people.

Maria Reylan M. Garcia (@reylangarcia), 22, graduated magna cum laude from a state university in 2011. She’s now enrolled in a private university, studying law.